the shadow economy of secondhand books

Oh, there’s a novel lurking between the lines of this short article about one of New York’s many informal economies: the secondhand book trade that stretches from stoops and recycling bins to the rows of shelves outside the Strand, and the often-homeless entrepreneurs who ply it--such Tommy Books and Leprechaun, first in the bookselling queue each morning:

Hundreds of men and a smaller number of women eke out a living scavenging books in Manhattan, according to Mitchell Duneier, author of “Sidewalk,” a book about the subculture of sidewalk book scavengers and vendors. Some of them sell their books on the street; others, the less entrepreneurial, or the more impatient, go for the surefire cash at the Strand.

Duneier’s book, an ethnography of a Greenwich Village sidewalk economy/community, sounds fascinating—according to this review, contra the NYT's implication, it tells the stories of an assortment of vendors, hustlers, and other sidewalk entrepreneurs, rather than just the book-scavengers. I’ll stop by the NYPL on the way home from work and try to find a copy. And if it’s checked out, well, there’s always the Strand.