The Known World Bookshop, Ballarat

One of the things I sell in my shop is second-hand books, and friends and family have very kindly given me boxes of books they no longer want. Sorting through them can be quite telling. For instance, the box of books my father-in-law gave me contained quite a few titles about running a small freehold (I didn't know he was interested in that) living in France (his francophilia I knew about) and curing cancer with alternative medicine (I knew he didn't want his mother to die - who does? - but I didn't know it had led him in this direction).

Speaking of mortality, the whole second-hand books thing has had my boyfriend questioning the point of his own library. For as long as I've known him, it has been a point of pride that he doesn't part with a single volume. But watching some of our fifty- and sixty-something friends cull their collections has made him wonder what exactly it is he's hanging on to.