Category Archives: Community

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The Lives We Touch

I’ve been thinking a lot this year about what we do. Receive Books. Sell books. Ship books. Process the accounting for receiving, selling, and shipping books.

Sounds rather straightforward, yet it’s only the stencil for a rich tapestry.

Behind the scenes, as a company we hire people, train people, pay people for the work they do. We help to build careers, share ideas with each other, learn from our mistakes, learn from each other, and together build a company we intend to last for decades.

We create a promise called a brand, which is about price, quality, service, selection, loyalty, and experience. We build relationships with customers who return to us repeatedly, first as hopeful young readers, then as devoted adult readers, and eventually as parents and grandparents bringing subsequent generations into the miraculous impact of printed words bound by covers and titles.

We build our business on the foundation of one of the oldest technologies in the history of humanity, the earliest modern examples of which were in evidence some 2000 years ago. Imagine that, a form of technology that has changed so little since ancient times. Compare that to your own experience of the phone’s evolution in just one lifetime. We carry the tradition of sharing the written word on scrolls, parchment, and eventually printed paper from our ancestors to those who aren’t yet born.

We deliver a relatively inexpensive form of media that may encompass storytelling, science, history, biography, education, law, religion, philosophy, poetry, art, music, recipes, instruction, or any other memorialization of human achievement. We deliver it in any number of languages across international borders. We deliver a book from one human hand to another over a hundred thousand times each day.

Yes, we do all that. We do all those things. I think we do it better than anyone in the world.

Yet given the emotional tenor of the past year, I think we do something even more important.

We touch lives.

We open minds.

We soften hearts.

We bring families together around the shared love of a classic tale.

We help the pages of an author’s creation inspire the thinking of a fellow traveler to consider a different point of view.

We bring to the door a proven tool to inspire personal growth through interpretation and resonance.

We join in the dialogue of exploring human purpose, to reveal the mysteries of the universe as they are discovered and conveyed.

We work hard to let ideas circulate, drive discussion, ignite important debate, and reinvent ideas that time suggests warrant revision.

There is nothing as powerful for me as seeing the moment when young non-readers suddenly take a book from the hands of their parents and demonstrate themselves to be a reader. Every time I see that light come on I see a path of enlightenment reoccur. It is reading that connects us from then to now, from now to the future, and forever to each other.

Books do that and will continue to do so as far into the future as I can imagine. ThriftBooks is harmoniously immersed in that continuum. We are a bridge on that road to enlightening minds.

That is what we do. That is the world we change.

It is said as we age our paths evolve from seeking success to seeking significance. In the more than two decades we have served our customers, we have become evangelists of reading and embarked on a legacy of significance. It is one part privilege, one part responsibility, and many parts celebration.

This holiday season, as we revisit our various notions of significance, as we think about the gift of kindness, let’s remember we do much more than the unending work of building a company together. 

My wife, a beloved ESL teacher, joyously affirms that our books are our treasures. We celebrate the people who read them as even more precious treasures. We bring one form of treasure to another. 

These are the lives we touch.

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Photo: Pixabay

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Don’t Yell at the Pilot

If you are a regular reader of this blog, you know I spend a lot of time on planes. When you fly a lot or spend a hunk of time at airports, you observe human behavior in many of its less magnificent expressions. There’s no way around it — the more you fly, the more likely things are to go wrong. It’s a numbers game. Take 100 flights, and if just 5% of them don’t go as planned, that’s five bad days of travel interrupted. That 5% is optimistic.

Frequent travelers know that getting angry at the people trying to help you with a canceled or rerouted flight is not likely to get you what you want. You may think yelling at the person on the other side of the computer will get their attention. What you don’t know is what they are typing, or would have typed if you had been a little kinder.

Last week I had one of those bad business travel days. Shortly after takeoff, we were notified by the captain that there was an unexpected rumbling we all heard in the retraction of the landing gear. Although he assured us we were safe, to be even safer he was going to make an unscheduled landing at the next major airport we were approaching.

You can imagine the groans from the cabin passengers. “There goes the day.” “So much for our plans.” Yep. That’s what happens. The captain makes the call and the plane goes where the captain says it goes. Twenty minutes later we were on a runway and at a gate two hours short of our destination.

Indeed there was confusion when we landed. We were asked to disembark and wait at the gate. Job 1 of course was to inspect the plane and see if it could be airborne again. If you have ever experienced this scenario, you know the chances were maybe 10% that plane was going back in the sky the same day, but you do what the crew advises and take it a step at a time.

Because we were an unexpected landing the gate was understaffed. While they tried to get the connecting passengers rerouted, they asked the single destination passengers to wait for a call on whether the plane was safe to fly again or we would need to be rebooked. Frequent travelers know not to wait — you get on the phone or internet, rebook while seats are available on other flights, and take whatever seat you can get to keep moving. Of course not everyone can be helped immediately with long lines and on-hold wait times, so there was reasonable angst in the gate area.

Reasonable, that is, until the captain came off the plane and visited with us while we waited. That’s when people became unreasonable. He told us the likelihood of that plane taking off again the same day was extremely low, and we should all be making other plans. He was honest and straightforward. He didn’t have to do that. He didn’t even have to talk to us. In exchange for his candor, a number of passengers started yelling at him. “This is unacceptable!” “Do you know how to run an airline or not?” “What compensation do we get for this inconvenience?”

There are a few cardinal rules frequent travelers embrace. Don’t make jokes when passing through security. Don’t step in front of small children or anyone in a wheelchair when boarding or deplaning. And don’t yell at anyone in uniform. Ever. Do not yell at a flight attendant. Absolutely never yell at a pilot.

For all these angry passengers knew, this pilot might have just saved their lives. Sure he said there was no danger in the air, but you don’t know if that’s really true. A captain would never create a panic in the cabin. This captain made a call and set the plane down. Now we’re calling family to tell them we’re going to be late and worrying about retrieving our luggage. Could it be worse? At 37,000 feet above the Earth?

I remember during Covid when passengers were complaining to flight attendants about wearing masks. Sometimes that exploded into yelling. I thought to myself, what makes people think that flight attendants have any discretion over enforcing federal policy? What can passengers possibly hope to accomplish by yelling at those making it possible to fly during the pandemic?

Airline inflight personnel are heroes who look after our safety first and foremost. They don’t run the airline. They aren’t in management or marketing. They are not jet manufacturers or maintenance crews. Their job is to get us where we are going safely. They do that with 99.99% accuracy, maybe more 9s. To yell at a pilot for the inconvenience someone might be suffering is beyond ignorant, beyond disrespectful, beyond lunatic. The pilot did his job. Applaud him, thank him, write a letter of commendation on his behalf.

Don’t yell at the pilot. Never. You’ll get where you’re going because a highly trained and experienced professional kept that option open for you. Their thousands of hours in the cockpit prepared them to make split-second decisions, perhaps a few consequential times in their careers, that allowed you to read these words. I’m in awe of their talent, commitment, dedication, and perfectionism. Yell at them and you’re going to get a different kind of feedback from passengers like me, their most devoted fans.

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Photo: Pexels

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Knowing You Are There

It has been a harrowing start to 2025.

The change in Presidential administrations has further divided the nation. My own sense of the shared values that I presumed were unquestionable leaves me confused. I can’t make sense of the logic patterns laying the foundation for our future. The disorientation of those with opposing views seems to be intentional, and sadly, effective.

Closer to home, the wildfires in Southern California came about as close to our home as one could imagine. My wife and I are safe and without major damage to our home after a period of evacuation. We are among the lucky ones.

Everyone we know in the Los Angeles County area knows several people who have lost their homes. The damage we’ve observed can’t be described adequately in words. Whenever a natural disaster occurs, we see people on television attempting to find words to describe it. There’s a reason they mostly just cry. Experiencing the loss is not something words are meant to convey. Words fail us for a reason. Words are inadequate to express the true pain of total loss.

My point in writing here is different. It is meant as an expression of gratitude to all of you who contacted us during the fires. There were calls, texts, emails, social media posts — the kindness was endless. To say I was surprised at the expanse of outreach from around the globe would be another failure of words. Your concern wasn’t just heartening. It was rejuvenating. It was uplifting. It was empowering. It was an inspiration.

The words each of you shared meant the world to us, but more than that, the collective of those words enriched our lives with a sense of hope too easily lost in a time of crisis. We knew we had friends and people who cared about us. We had no idea how many of you there were.

Knowing you are there has proven a more powerful force than you can imagine. I tell you this because as the lucky ones, we are driven to pay it forward. One way to do that is to thank you for your graciousness of spirit. Another is to let you know your words matter more to all the people you offer them than you might think. Of course, actions of support matter in concert with words, but the words you choose to share hold a power all their own. When people know you are there, it gives them the strength to rise up.

Alone very little is possible. Together resilience is possible.

In this time of recovery, please know you are part of the solution when you choose to express kindness. It’s more than words. It’s the fuel of reenergizing those who need a boost. Where there is support, we can rekindle our dreams and muster the strength to find a direction forward. You make this possible in the very evidence of expressing care. Our humanity cannot be taken from us if we maintain the good sense to express it lavishly and without expectation.

Caring and the willingness to express it isn’t just how we get through the wildfires. It’s how we remain on course in our humanity no matter the obstacles thrown at us. Obstacles however great can be overcome when authentic charity overpowers the spoils of dislocation. This I believe is what is meant by community.

Knowing you are there has been a revelation that perhaps should have been more obvious. We can’t thank you enough, and we can only hope you continue that kindness to those who need it much more than we do.

Community is amazing. You are amazing. Together we rise.

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Image: Los Angeles County Recovers

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Insist on Honesty

I have learned with age that part of life is navigating past disillusionment. With humility we recommit to resilience. The rules have clearly changed on us. What we thought we learned was dependably true no longer seems so.

Defeat is a temporary condition as long as we choose to continue to advocate for character, integrity, and justice. There is no silencing honesty and lies will always be lies.

Perhaps this is a good time to re-read 1984 by George Orwell. First-time readers are equally likely to be astonished by its prescience and relevance. As long as 2 + 2 = 4, the notion of shared understanding remains in the realm of the possible. There is no interpretation of 2 + 2 = 4; it is always so. Facts must be facts.

Can human beings be bullied to answer otherwise? Can we be compelled to state openly that 2 + 2 = 5? That‘s what’s on the table. There has to be such a thing as empirical reality or all bets are off. When too many people are convinced otherwise, a community can no longer function without chaos. Fear can never cause us to deny the objectivity we know to be true or freedom deteriorates to a misnomer of ethical compromise.

Demanding honesty has to be bipartisan or the ability to cooperate despite our differences becomes impossible. We insist on honesty from our children and teach them this is a fundamental value. One of the first lessons we teach a child is that lying is always wrong. Tell the truth always, take ownership for your mistakes, do not justify doing harm to others, do not cheat, build trust with others through consistent honesty. We must then lead by example, all of us, or the teaching is corrosively undermined.

Understanding science is part of embracing honesty. Sorting past rhetoric to examine the assembled results of structured experiments is not easy work, but without that ceaseless effort, it’s easy to be deceived. Scientific process will forever evolve, that is its nature. We unpack the natural world as we explore it through the generations, century after century.

Sometimes we arrive at settled knowledge. Sometimes we make decisions based on prevailing proof. When an idea gets turned over, that is not a matter of subjectivity but disciplined argument and expert peer review. There are subject matter experts who have earned their authority. Internet and social media noise are forms of unedited expression, not authority.

Insist on honesty from all those in your life who would tell you otherwise. We can’t become cynical or the inspiration to effect positive change will elude us. We are still in this together, our empathy is our strength. What better choice do we have than to be even more honest versions of ourselves?

Raise your voice, maintain your courage, never cave to false promise. Blame is a coward’s tactic, not a sustainable motivation. Hope will lift us up. A setback is a moment in time.

We fight on.

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Book Cover Image: Signet Classics