Between the Pages of a Used Book

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A good book, a book you've been looking for, a book you can't afford to buy brandnew, a book you never thought existed, found in the neverending stacks and layers and shelves of a used-book store is like being rewarded after a day of cotton picking. You buy it, trying hard to hide your giddy heart from the cashier. You bought a Steinbeck for $2. You walk back home and curl up, hide inside a blanket, leg astride a pillow, hand grasping your new acquisition. The pages are yellow, and you put your fingers over the golden fingermarks of the previous owner, or maybe the store attendants', or of the numerous people who have handled this book before you retrieved it from shelf-death. There is a name written in beautiful cursive and to the left you read a dedication, in a much tousled handwriting. A gift. There are notations inside, questions raised by the previous owner and written excitedly on the margins. Some phrases are undelined. You go over the notations and you smile. Aside from the story in the printed words on this book, there is the story of the previous owners, the previous readers who have all left their marks on the pages. You start to read the book, you add on to the marks, you become connected to these people who have once owned this book and in the same moment that you are reading each word the book remembers all of you at once. There is a conversation going on in used-books, between the previous and the new users. I find it very comforting to read used books, they are personal and friendly, unlike the stiff pages and smell of new books. Has anyone ever thought or felt the same way or have I just been visiting too many second-hand bookstores?