The Black Hole of Book Buying

[image description: an open book with a flower serving as a bookmark. An unlit candle is beside the book.]
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My taste in books ranges from new releases to vintage books that have been out for decades and everything in between. Though 99% of the time I’m able to find the books I want easily, I’ve noticed that for one particular area of books, there’s a black hole.

For new releases, I support my favorite indie bookstores. For vintage titles, I usually search places like Etsy because it feels more personal to me (not to mention curated) than trying to dig through boxes at my local rare and out-of-print bookstore. However, neither of these places are reliable sources for books published from 1990 to 2015 that weren’t tremendously popular.

There are a number of books published during that time frame that have staying power and are still in print, though there are many more from that period that have fallen out of print. Therefore, indie bookstores are unlikely to have them. And the books are recent enough that most wouldn’t consider them vintage, so rare and out-of-print bookstores aren’t likely to have them either. And if they weren’t super popular, the library may have never purchased copies or they’ve already discarded the copies they do have.

I realized this recently when I wanted to buy a copy of If I Fall, If I Die by Michael Christie. I heard the novel prominently features skateboarding and since I’m trying to build my skate library, I wanted to find it. The novel came out in 2015 and didn’t win any awards (that I’m aware of), so it fell into this black hole of book buying.

I’m happy to report I found a copy on Book Outlet. I’ve found them to be a reliable source for those black hole books. Happy day for me!

Are there books you have trouble finding? Let me know!