USED BOOKS STORES AN ECONOMICAL HAVEN FOR COMPULSIVE READERS

Jennifer Adams, left, looked over the book The Utmost Island with her friend Kristy Stovall in the children's books at the Book Bug in Cape Girardeau.

There is something inordinately comforting about a well-worn book. The spine fits snugly in your hand and the pages fall open to your favorite passage without prompting.

And at times, there's something shock-inducing about brand new books -- like the price tag.

Compulsive readers (the kind of people who read cereal boxes when the morning paper's late) have long known that used books are the key to a magical equation: More reading matter for less money.

Is there anything worse for a true bookworm than not having anything to read? And many used books are still just new enough to not need too much breaking in.

John Hendricks, owner of The Book Rack in Cape Girardeau's Town Plaza, which features new and used paperback books, says used books usually sell for about half the price of new books.

And customers can often "trade in" used books for credit toward more books, including at Hendricks' store and at The Book Bug at 821-D Broadway.

That's a good way to keep people coming back, said Mary Hahn, owner of The Book Bug.

"I have a lot of regular customers and have for years," she said.

"It's an inexpensive way to read. They can bring them back and take more and maybe find some things that are out of print."

"We've got a lot of traders in here," agreed Hendricks.

Another advantage used bookstores offer is rotating stock, which gives customers a wider range of books to choose from, Hendricks and Hahn pointed out.

"There's so many authors and so many books, there's a limit to the number of titles you can handle," Hahn said.

Stores that sell new books have to devote much of their space to new releases and bestsellers, which means customers may not be able to find older titles without special-ordering them.

But used book dealers can devote shelf space to the bestsellers that were popular a few years ago, or in the case of some romance titles and other series, a few months ago.

"A lot of people come in trying to find things that they haven't been able to find in a new bookstore," Hahn said.

"Our stock rotates so much, you never know what's going to be in and out of here," Hendricks said.

Used books are especially attractive to readers devoted to a particular genre.

They can find all of their favorite titles and authors at a fraction of the price of new books.

"The biggest-selling books we have are the romance novels and the bestsellers," Hendricks said.

"Some of my customers enjoy the mysteries. I sell a lot of Westerns. Novels. Historical romances," said Hahn. "It really depends on the customer."

Shopping at used bookstores isn't like shopping at a used furniture store, Hendricks cautions. Customers aren't likely to find valuable antiques hidden among the stacks of historical romances and last year's thrillers.

"Typically, paperbacks are not worth a whole lot," he said.

Unless you've already read everything in the house.