Grace Holleman

If you’ve taken a math class at Columbia, chances are you’re familiar with the wall of mailboxes in Mathematics Hall. They serve as conduits, as a communication system between two distinct but mutually dependent parts of the University: the doers and the graders of homework.

At the beginning of this semester, just as I did at the start of the last, I walked four blocks to Book Culture with my syllabi in hand, ready to raid the store’s trove of pre-owned books. Later, flipping through my purchases, I discovered that some used volumes had been transformed from textbooks into objects brimming with historical and tactile significance.