Sundays, Mondays, Thursdays, and Fridays from 4-6pm are when you can trade in your old books for cash or store credit at Capitol Hill Books.

The proprietor is comfortingly curmudgeonly and doesn’t brook argument nor negotiation in the process. I brought in six books and was given seven dollars store credit, which was noted and filed on an index card.

I brought in four volumes of the late Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time series. Seeing as how the Wheel is twelve volumes (and counting – the series is being completed by Brandon Sanderson, based on notes left behind by Jordan, who was not caught unaware by his death and made plans for someone else to be able to finish the series, more or less as he had intended) and not particularly good, I can’t imagine going back later and re-reading them. Don’t get me wrong – I’m going to finish the damn series. I’m on the sixth book and have invested  (wasted?) too much of my time to give up now. But to cling to volumes I’ve finished, when the writing can best be described as “cluttered” and “lacking in humor” seems to be a gross misuse of bookshelf space, which is at a premium right now.

Another book I brought in was one of the Harry Potter novels. This may sound like heresy, but it seems to have escaped many people’s notice that the Harry Potter novels are crap. I’d bought this one for some young relatives and found it still in my possession because it turned out they already had that volume. I did read the first one and the strongest sensation it generated what the strong desire to read something better. If you enjoyed Harry Potter, may I suggest you pick up a copy of Ursula K. LeGuin’s A Wizard of Earthsea to find out how it’s really done.

Finally, I traded in a copy of Richard Wilbur’s Inner Voices. Normally, I would never get rid of a book of poetry, but Wilbur is an exception. I can’t stand him. I wish I could remember what misguided thoughts compelled me to purchase this book from the Hollywood Borders so that I would know to ignore them in the future.

This was the bounty for which I received seven dollars.

I browsed to crowded (with both books and patrons) aisles for something to spend my new riches on. Mostly, I was torn between a Modern Library edition of the selected writings of Saint Thomas Aquinas (a beautiful little volume, with a smooth, hard red cover and the smell of suitably aged tome) and something from Harvard’s Loeb Classical Library. In the end, I didn’t get anything. Partly because the Aquinas was $8.50 and the Loebs were $15 – which is to say, more than the value of my credit. Also, I wasn’t sure how my better half would respond if I brought home another book (she was working near the book store and would undoubtedly have seen me pass by, carrying my new used book. Maybe I’ll see if there is anything else I can stand to be rid of on my shelf to try and build up to either $8.50 (plus tax) or $15 (plus tax).