What is it about used book stores that makes me love them so much? They’re full of already-read books, which are mostly like new ones, but dirtier and more beat up. So why are they so great? For me, I suppose it’s a combination of two things.

First, I’m a big fan of old sci-fi and fantasy novels, many of which are out of print, and a well-stocked used book store gives me a chance to pick some up that I might not otherwise have access to. And second, not only do I get to enjoy a story, not only do I get transported to another world bounded only by my imagination (am I starting to sound too much like Reading Rainbow here?) but there’s also a bit of mystery around the idea that this same book was in someone else’s hands. Where did they read it? What did it trigger in their imaginations? It’s the same kind of curiosity that fuels ideas like BookCrossing. Keeping these questions in the back of my mind adds something small but satisfying to the act of enjoying a story.

Having recently moved to within walking distance of a used book store, I find myself enjoying previously-read books much more often than I normally would, and I especially enjoyed my latest read: Stephen King’s On Writing. It’s nonfiction, half autobiography and half advice on writing, a fraction of the length of the average Stephen King book, and it might just be his best work yet.

It inspires me to write. Short stories, blog entries, a novel, whatever. Reading that book just made me want to write something. Of course, I have the attention span of a gust of wind, so by next week it might be back to woodworking or wire jewelry making. Who knows? That’s why my life is interesting.

In On Writing, Stephen King describes his working environment and habits, and his process of taking a book from an idea, through editing and rewriting, to publication. The care he takes when refining his work, his methods for working around the second-guessing every writer does. The personal problems he struggled with while writing some of the stories I have since enjoyed reading. To know something about the author’s state of mind sort of extends further the feeling of intimacy with a story that I get from reading previously read books.

If you like to write, or maybe just have enjoyed the occasional Stephen King book and want to understand something about the author’s motivation, you could do much worse than to read this book. I thoroughly enjoyed it.