I did read (or skim) several of them--enough to see that I am right that the thrift store could be doing more good, better ––but some books also mention the pitfalls of trying to do so, and we've got all of them too––ego, burn out, the death of key players, etc.
(Not to mention universal human limitations, ignorance, incompetence.)
I'd say our store is, as my boss says, "doing OK." I mean, aside from seeing systemic injustices that exist everywhere, I don't see flagrant injustice or abuse at work–– neglect, yes, but more benign than criminal, and I've even come to see the neglect as a kind of blessing.
People laugh a lot at work--something's going right. I'm leaving it, unless I can add something to what's already there (or missing). Like bookmarks!
"There are some enterprises in which a careful disorderliness is the true method."
--Herman Melville, Moby Dick
In that stack above, I very much enjoyed David Thomson's Moments That Made the Movies---reminds me of how I used to blog Movie Moments (23 of them, I see!).
Running the Books: The Adventures of an Accidental Prison Librarian (2011), by Avi Steinberg was good---reminded me of my work, since I work with a lot of guys who did prison time---and like Ari and his prison-library patrons, we don't share a lot of common cultural references, but we do share being human.
The Infernal Library sounded great: it's about books written by dictators––verbosity seems to go with the territory––but it was mostly description and almost no insight. Meh.
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