Forster's words from "Howards End" perhaps ringing in their ears: "Only connect....only connect." The proximity of the present to the past  of life to death  in used-book stores is electrifying.  In a pre-digital electrical way.  Take the Eclectic Collector, a dark, breezy hole in the wall just off the pier in Hermosa Beach.  Presided over by Tom Allard, a Barnaby Rudge-type who can usually be found outside the shop in a Hawaiian shirt, smoking, the Collector is usually empty. 