Washington Post: “…America is saturated with old books, congesting Ikea Billy cases, Jengaing atop floors, Babeling bedside tables. During months of quarantine, book lovers faced all those spines and opportunities for multiple seasons of spring cleaning. They adore these books, irrationally, unconditionally, but know that, ultimately, if they don’t decide which to keep, it will be left to others to unceremoniously dump them. So, despite denial, grief, bargaining, anguish and even nausea, the Great Deaccession commenced…”

This is the most material flooding onto the market that I’ve ever seen,” says veteran Vancouver, Wash., dealer KolShaver, a sentiment shared by sellers across the country. For dealers who survived the pandemic, “the used-book business has never been healthier,” says Wonder Book owner Chuck Roberts, a 42-year veteran in the trade, strolling through his three-acre warehouse, a veritable biblio wonderland, jammed with volumes ranging from never-been-cracked publishers’ overstock to centuries-old classics bound in leather. “We take everything and pretty much what no one else is going to take,” Roberts says, which is how his business accumulated an inventory of 6 million, with 300,000 more new used books arriving every month. Wonder Book practices “nose-to-tail bookselling,” meaning a home or use is found for each item one way or the other through multiple websites (national and international), three bricks-and-mortar stores, and school and charitable donations. Wonder Book’s damaged items on life support are pulped to produce 100,000 pounds monthly of recycled paper.” [I have a drop-off pick-up relationship with this place / no ebooks for me!]