Good Life: Re-use, recycle and re-read

I recently had the pleasure of getting lost in a second-hand bookshop in New England, surrounded by the soothing scent of old paper and fading inks, writes Susan Morrell.

I buy plenty of new books. But there's something a little more whimsical about buying ones that have been read and loved before.

I recently had the pleasure of getting lost in a second-hand bookshop in New England. Surrounded by the soothing scent of old paper and fading inks, I stood amid gravity-defying towers of old tomes, each precarious pile more perilous than the next. How they didn't topple over onto us bewildered browsers - a potential avalanche of out-of-prints, beach reads and dog-eared classics - I'll never know.

The proprietor must have got a kick ...