Goods which are past their sell by date

I have read that sales of books are doing well; that people are buying more books in print form than ever. Which may be so, but the prices of second hand books strike me as being very low: quite often I am able to buy a second hand book for little more than the cost of its postage from somewhere up north. And one has trouble giving away boxes of second hand books, despite their having been terribly valuable and important at some point in one's life. While it is quite possible that, contrariwise, the price of antique and collectible books is holding up well.

All of which could be glossed by saying that young people want to read fiction in print form, but in so far as they read non-fiction at all, they do that on a computer. While collecting fancy print books as a hobby or to show off is doing just fine: even footballers' wives, rock stars and personalities do it. There is also the consideration that non-fiction dates very quickly these days - both in terms of content and in terms of the presentation of that content - which means that online is much more practical than offline. Just think of all the tricks that Wikipedia entries get up to these days, tricks which don't work on the printed page at all.

Something of the sort may be going on with music on vinyl, with most recorded music these days being consumed directly from the Internet. Not to say live music in these days of social distancing and more or less closed music venues.

Against which background, I was thinking of getting rid of maybe nine inches of more or less brand new, boxed sets of Baroque choral music, music which I sometimes thought I would get around to, but have not actually got around to in thirty or more years. I could make better use of the shelf space. So BH turns up the advertisement above.

Shortly after that, quite by chance, she learns of a music group which meets at the Leatherhead Institute of reference 1, itself a bit of a relic of past times, but still doing well, still going strong. One of the things that the music group does is listen to, and presumably discuss, recorded music, rather like a reading group. Inquiry reveals that they would be happy to take the choral music.

And we are more than happy to have found a good home for it. Taking it to the tip, or leaving our children to take it to the tip - or drop it in a skip - at some point in the future, not nearly such good outcomes.

PS: I sometimes find that Wikipedia gets a bit carried away with clever presentation - so clever that it intrudes rather than helps. But I dare say that will settle down.

Reference 1: https://leatherheadinstitute.uk/.