Leaving Books Behind

I've thought before about the question of what books I'd bring to a desert island (isn't it interesting that this hypothetical assumes that you'll somehow be given advance notice of your impending exile, not to mention allowed luggage?).  Books that almost always find a place on the list include Pride and Prejudice, Vanity Fair, Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, Lake Woebegone days, my Jeeves & Wooster omnibus edition, and Innocents Abroad.  There's a second-tier, too, which includes books I'm fond of and have re-read many times but could probably leave behind, like Illusion, or Howl's Moving Castle, or Judith Merkle Riley's books.  Of course, this kind of listmaking is just done idly; you never think you'll have to make those kinds of decisions.  That is, until you start thinking about your impending move to a foreign country.  Even within 100 lbs of checked luggage, there's not a lot of room for novels. 

The classics, like Austen and Twain, present no problem, because their e-books are cheap.  I already put Innocents Abroad and its semi-sequel, A Tramp Abroad, on my tablet, for example.  But what about the others?  Few of them are new or popular enough to be available within the e-lending libraries to which I have access (though Diana Wynne Jones' books are in the New Haven library's digital catalog), and since Kindle books cost $7-10, on average, replacing a bookshelf's worth of material with digital versions would be pretty expensive.  That means if I want any hard copies, I'll have to make some difficult choices on who gets to travel with me.  I can probably also acquire some books at the Paperback Exchange in Florence, or an equivalent store, if there is one, in Rome.  

I don't really look forward to a future filled only with e-books; I don't mind them (I just finished Zola's The Ladies' Paradise yesterday on my tablet, actually), but I'd always prefer a physical copy if I can get one.  What's annoying is that there is no version of the second-hand store or library tag sale for e-books; they're always new, never used--and thus never deeply discounted.  Would any e-book purchase ever be able to equal the price-to-value ratio of acquiring Lake Woebegone Days at the PapEx for 0.25 euro cents??