We once had a donation at college of those overruns in the student centre, where they can't sell the books, so they cut the covers. They were mostly Penguin classics. I gathered up so many that I couldn't really carry them well, and I filled up a couple of bags plus more (they're small, but still). I was late for my next class. My professor actually helped me carry them to my car. Afterwards, I went back and picked through what was left and found quite a few more. I was a history and classics major, so these were right up my alley, things like Scipio and Herodotus, Descartes, etc., but also some esoteric subjects like understanding tarot as well. I wound up with about 100 of them. I still have them. It was so worth it, even with damaged covers.
Now I will say, when I got home, a friend looked through them and asked to pick one or two for himself and my greedy pigginess got threatened (hey, I didn't share well back then; I'm an only child and I'd worked hard at getting them home). He'd missed out on the whole thing. He got mad and decided I should be buried with the 'imperative books' or, in my case, cremated with them. Since he's in charge of my funeral, he may just do it, despite my advance planning, and the thought of him burning books in a crematorium does bother me. He'll know which ones are which due to the covers, too.
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