I know exactly what you mean. Then I worked at Barnes and Noble where we tore the covers off of mass markets that couldn't sell to send back to the publisher and discarded the rest of the book. Every now and then a decent book would go into this pile (Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, once) but the vast majority of time it was harlequins and similar stuff that was churned out for indiscriminate tastes. Imagine whole garbage cans of this stuff. Stuff that would be replaced the following day and then thrown out the following month.

Sometimes books simply aren't worth the shelf space.

I eventually felt the same about a $50 guitar that I bought out of musiciansfriend catalogue when I was 16. Tuning pegs that wouldn't sit still, poorly aligned frets… the rosette was printed onto a piece of paper. It's hard to believe that something as beautiful as a musical instrument could be built so poorly.

I wonder how similar the act is? Lots and lots of books are crap that is printed on cheap paper for sale in airports, and I don't see much reason to lament tossing such a thing (especially if it is damaged).

I suppose you should take care to not extend the sentiment to finely crafted foods.

It's pretty horrible if you lose a hand-made instrument, because even if it was insured, you're never going to play something that plays exactly the same again. (This happened to me a few weeks ago with a flute.)