I constantly find books I didn't even know I wanted. And when I do, I go straight to ebay.com. Started in September 1995 by Pierre Omidyar in his San Jose living room, ebay.com was meant initially as a way for his wife, a collector of Pez plastic candy dispensers, to meet and trade with other Pez plastic dispenser enthusiasts.
But ebay.com exploded as only ideas do whose time has come. By the turn of the millennium, it was the biggest and most successful selling site on the net, with millions of deals concluded every day. And this was nowhere truer than in the world of books. On any given day, over half a million books are on offer on ebay.com - minus one, because I have just bought "A Pound of Paper - Confessions of a Book Addict" by John Baxter.
The book finishes with an appendix where Baxter asked book people, writers, agents, publishers, etc. to list the book they would save if their house were on fire (there are some great answers but perhaps the best is the limited edition of "Fahrenheit 451" that was bound in asbestos). I look forward to finding out if any of my favourite books are in that list.
