What Do I Do With 100's Of Various Books?

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Kathy

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I am in the middle of clearing my friends house and I am now in possession of about 25 large boxes of various books, which I obviously don't want to throw away. Most of them are in a "good" condition. There will probably be another 10 boxes to follow once I have spent another weekend sorting them. There is a real assortment of titles. Has anyone got any other suggestions, apart from sending them to a local charity shop for them to sell? I am not one for car boot sales, nor do I want to get any money for them via Ebay. Any suggestions?

Many thanks again for any advice! B)
 
hi

u can drop them at prince regents residence im an avid reader

but preferably not fiction any history/racing books will be welcome

u may even earn yourslef a cup of tea :lol:
 
I wondered why there were so many Catherine Cooksons in the library in your part of Brum
 
What a brilliant idea Paul, thanks. Will they take any age, any subject?. It hadn't even occured to me. I will probably sort them then, and give some to charity, some to my local library, and see if there are any titles I can send to my old mate PR! B)
 
PDJ- Look I told you before that I bought those cheap from krizon for a charity shop and you couldn't have them - stop sulking and get over it
 
Even brillianter advice from your Auntie Kriz, Kathy: I've literally just disposed (two days ago) of two bin bags of assorted books between the Ancient Briton and myself to a book dealer. We got £40. Look up 'Book Dealers' (yeah, I know it's obvious!) in your Yellow Pages. Any of them saying they deal in antiquarian or second-hand will come round, VERY quickly whizz through what they want, and make you an offer. They'll cart them away and leave you with what you can then either flog off at a car boot sale, or donate.

What they'll want to find are good condition fiction and non-fiction paperbacks that aren't too old; all kinds of good hardbacks on non-fiction subjects; leather-bound or genuine antiquarian books (not just old Victorian novels, though!).

There are lots of subjects they won't be interested in, and they never buy Reader's Digest stuff (because far too many people do!), but let them sort that out.

The best thing is NOT to try and sort them yourself (I never do when I'm culling the shelves) - just leave them to take a pull at what they want. You'll be amazed at how quick they are! You won't get much for anything modern, to be honest, but if there are any books that look special to YOU, put them aside and ask the dealer about them. Sadly, unless it's something like a first edition of T S Eliot's 'Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats' (on which 'Cats' is based), or a really rare book, you won't get a fortune. But you might just as well have whatever they give you, and clear the space! :)
 
It's getting to the stage now where I should start to think about culling my collection of books; trouble is, I don't like to part with them! I will pick up a book & re-read it if it is a good one, I don't like getting rid of them. It is getting to the point now though whereby next time I move I will have to set aside a room as a library!
 
Thanks Aunty Krizon. :D I do have some rather valuable "looking" books which have dates inside ranging from late 1800's to early 1900's. I have already put those to one side as they could well be valuable. It is a good idea for a book dealer to have a look at these too and if I get paid for them then I can donate the money to one of my friend's favourite charities. I also have some very old military photographs. One of them actually signed by one of the former King's of England with a covering letter which proves it's authenticity. :unsure: I intend to keep these unless someone offers me a few thousand for them. There are some very old looking cookery books and a host of various other subjects including many on gardening. I am not interested in receiving money for the books, but would like to think someone could get some use out of them.
 
Ask a dealer in, though, Kathy, as even if you don't personally wish to keep the proceeds, you'll definitely get some ££ towards your late friend's charities. And, unfortunately, many charity shops are not best qualified to determine what would be a good buy, and will just chuck everything onto the shelves for 25p to a quid. Either way, though, you're giving other people the chance to enjoy them! :)

Shads, now I'm in a small flat and don't have assorted rooms at my disposal for record-breaking collections of books, shoes, and handbags, I find the best thing to do is to ask myself if I could buy the book again if I really, really wanted it? All the popular bestsellers can be found in charity shops, as well as on the 25p boxes outside most secondhand dealers' shops. So you can easily find them again. I find the most difficult to cull are reference books, but if those are year-specific, the chances are the info's now out-of-date. Even dictionaries are updated every year to include words now considered to be in regular usage, such as 'nerd'. But I sentimentally hold on to a number of childhood books, especially those given to me by both my parents for birthdays! :shy:
 
Yeah, but I like to keep them, Kri! I also find that the majority of books in charity shops don't interest me in the slightest, either - and I do have a lot of (mainly historical) fairly obscure reference books, too.
 
If you get really overwhelmed, you can start stacking them into interesting shapes and forming coffee tables out of them... :blink:
 
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