You really never know how people will respond to having their past thrust at them like this. Or how they'll respond to strange phone calls.
I've bought many books over the years that had prior owner's names marked inside somewhere. On a few occasions I've bothered to try and identify/find the person in question. Once or twice I was successful, but I never bothered contacting them just to say "Hey, I bought this book you used to own". Well, except for one time.
I was on an Inductive Logic Programming / Prolog kick, and bought several used books on the subject. Something like two or three had all been owned by the same previous owner. I looked him up and found out that he was an academic and appeared to still be working, so I thought "what the heck" and sent him a note just to say "Hey, funny story, I bought these books and <blah, blah, blah>."
Not sure what I expected, if anything, in return, but the response I did get was quite chilly. It was something along the lines of "Oh, I donated those to a place that was supposed to be sending them to Africa" or something like that. There was definitely no sense that this individual was happy to hear from the new owner of his old books, or was interested in discussing the subject.
Which is fine. Like I said, I had no idea what to expect, and certainly would have had no right to expect any particular response. But it just goes to show... you are correct in saying
"You really never know how people will respond to having their past thrust at them like this. Or how they'll respond to strange phone calls." (or strange emails in this case)
When I was young, my collection of books ebbed and flowed based on how much spare cash I had. In lean times, I'd end up selling them, then eventually accumulate more. Once I got my career on a more consistent path, I collected books and ended up with a pretty diverse set, but in the back of my head I used the fact that I hadn't sold them as a barometer for my financial stability. Anyway, a couple of years ago, at the behest of my wife, I went through and culled about 1/3 of them. Took them to Half Price Books, where I was offered $8 for the lot. At first I was a little taken aback by that price, but then I realized I was handing them a box of the shittiest books I owned. If anyone doxes me to tell me how lovely their third-hand copy of Chilton's 1984 Audi 4000 manual is...I mean I would congratulate them for their effort, but I don't exactly sit around pining about a reconnection to that book.
When I moved out of my parent's home I of course left a bunch of random stuff behind including a few boxes of books that I didn't want to haul. Left them in the garage and forgot about them. A few years later my dad was cleaning up the darker corners of the garage and called me up, 'Hey there are some boxes of books in the garage, do you want them or can I just take them to goodwill.' I didn't want them at the time, I hadn't wanted them for years and I couldn't be bothered, so he ended up donating them.
A few years later I got a hankering to read the Dune series again and realized that they had been in one of those boxes. So I went to a used bookstore and found all the original dune books but god emperor. A few weeks later in another used bookstore I found a copy of god emperor. A beat up paperback, beat up in a very particular way. I flipped to the inner back cover where I found my initials. Apparently somehow my copy of god emperor donated out on the kitsap peninsula years before made it's way into a second hand book shop in seattle where I repurchased it.
If anyone doxes me to tell me how lovely their third-hand copy of Chilton's 1984 Audi 4000 manual is.
Fair enough. But at the same time, I'd almost bet that somewhere, out there, is some person who sold their copy of the Chilton's 1984 Audi 4000 manual, but JUST LOVED THAT CAR, and loves all things Audi, and would be tickled to tears to meet another Audi owner/enthusiast, etc, yadda yadda. That connection would probably result in the two individuals becoming lifelong friends or something.
I've bought many books over the years that had prior owner's names marked inside somewhere. On a few occasions I've bothered to try and identify/find the person in question. Once or twice I was successful, but I never bothered contacting them just to say "Hey, I bought this book you used to own". Well, except for one time.
I was on an Inductive Logic Programming / Prolog kick, and bought several used books on the subject. Something like two or three had all been owned by the same previous owner. I looked him up and found out that he was an academic and appeared to still be working, so I thought "what the heck" and sent him a note just to say "Hey, funny story, I bought these books and <blah, blah, blah>."
Not sure what I expected, if anything, in return, but the response I did get was quite chilly. It was something along the lines of "Oh, I donated those to a place that was supposed to be sending them to Africa" or something like that. There was definitely no sense that this individual was happy to hear from the new owner of his old books, or was interested in discussing the subject.
Which is fine. Like I said, I had no idea what to expect, and certainly would have had no right to expect any particular response. But it just goes to show... you are correct in saying
"You really never know how people will respond to having their past thrust at them like this. Or how they'll respond to strange phone calls." (or strange emails in this case)