Should they have kept their parents’ old books? Or sold them for more money? 

Anyone who has ever moved can tell you that books are one of the least fun things to move. They are so heavy and take up so many boxes and spaces. After moving books once, I’ve committed myself to primarily reading e-books, library books, and audiobooks. They might not feel as good in your hand as a paperback that you can call your own, but they accomplish what reading is meant to accomplish. 

Many baby boomers have huge book collections that their children will have to figure out what to do with after they pass away. If their late parents had a big house with a huge built-in bookshelf, it’s probably much easier to donate or sell their old books cheaply rather than keep them for yourself to read. You might not want to keep an old history book that contains historically inaccurate information, even if it belonged to your father and you feel sentimental about it. 

The reader in this story was agast when he found someone selling their parents’ old books for a measly $20 at an estate sale. His problem was less that they were undervalued, but that they were unread.