Certain works of literature have been published and republished, Cliff noted and anthologized and listed as essential works for cultural literacy. As someone in the rag-picker end of the book trade, I've decided to take note of books produced to fill a bookshelf with works we intend someday to read -- works we ought read -- but are often unread when we die and the books end up in the hands of rag pickers at an estate sale.
I'm vaguely interested in canon studies, of patrician, populist, and pomo viewpoints. I'm interested in craft and design and marketing. And I'm interested in ways that books which seem ordinary and unmerchantable might end up on a customers bookself in the 2010s for similar reasons that it was first bought in the 1920s.... because it lent an aura of class to the room. My thoughts generally turn to books one wants to read. My knowledge and resources can't support a business based upon books that convey bragging rights (except the look the treasure I picked up for a couple bucks brag that comes at my expense -- I hope to supply such brags as a trickle, not a torrent, though ignorance and laziness will let slip such finds to my customers).
For the few years I've been doing this, I've pondered offering Cliffs Notes (and similar aids) sold hand in hand with various examples of the works in question. I've decided to actively seek such works and to build a Canon Folderol section in my little antique mall book booth, as I savor the stories of how those books came to be and how they came to me.
