Secondhand bookshops

are dangerous places and I should not be allowed anywhere near one.
Now please don't misunderstand me. I love new books. I spend far too much money on new books. I like to think authors are getting at least a few cents or pence from me. Middle Cat says I would rather spend money on books than anything else. This is probably true - although I do sometimes buy yarn so that I can knit while I read...well, sort of.
But you never know what you might find in a secondhand book shop. There are books I would like to read which are long out of print and not to be found in libraries. I  have a mental list of authors in my head. I search for those on the shelves.
Our local charity shop, sadly closed for the moment, has an excellent secondhand book section. It is well organised - fiction in alphabetical order, non-fiction in subject categories. It is tidy. You can find things. I sometimes get books in there for the Senior Cat. Once in a while I will find something I have been searching for in there as well.
There are other secondhand book shops that are like that too. The books, mostly fairly modern paper backs, will be arranged in a similar way.  Yes, I can enjoy prowling the shelves. There you can find the latest "best seller" by an award winning author - obviously unread - or a political "autobiography" I happen to know was not written by the politician in question. There is "literary" fiction there - bought by people who think they "should" read something. It is obvious they have never got past the first few pages. You can find slim volumes of poetry - some good but most not - and self-published books on topics such as the sex life of one legged birds. All of them obviously read by very few, if any.
But it is the other sort of second hand book shop I really love - where the books are piled high, stacked at all sorts of angles into the shelves or on the floor and on the stools and chairs. The books will be old. The books will be out of print. They will have come from homes where they were loved. Their spines will be creased. You can find the occasional pressed flower. There will be the newspaper cutting announcing a birth or, more likely, a death. There will be the letter or the recipe slipped between the pages of the most unlikely book. 
Such places are blessedly silent.
And the owner will look at you when you prowl in. They will give you a knowing nod and return to the book in their hands and leave you to go hunting alone. You understand each other perfectly. This isn't a "Can I help you?" sort of place. It is simply a place where readers, real readers, understand one another.