What to do with old books?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Just moved into mom and dad's old beach house full of hundreds of books and I've got close to 100 myself and I don't have room! I've boxed (about 5 boxes) the books I don't want around.

Most of their books were NYT #1 in the 50s-80s, which I'm keeping to read myself (I didn't realize mom was such a gothic romance and Victoria Holt fan as well as all Holt's pen names for her Queen's series). But other I do not want.

So, do I just toss the rest in a recycle bin? I guess I'm asking so I can toss them without guilt.

The local thrift stores do not want them, as does not the local library...I have already tried.

some examples, dad's old engineering/science textbooks from the 50s. Really, no one wants them. I worked at a community college my last 10 years before retirement and trust me, universities/colleges don't want them as they likely already have copies that sit unused.

Self-Help books from those era's? Grant you, probably not much has changed from Peale's "The Power of Positive Thinking", but I don't see anyone wanting it.
Political books from those era's...really how many JFK books come out each year!
Art Linkletter joke books...really??? Do people even remember him? and then there's, Life and Times of the "Duke", IFYDK,YDK
Encyclopedia's from the 70s. 30+ volumes of wasted book shelf space.

I had to laugh at this because my darling clutterbug husband has Art Linkletter joke books.

As you know you might have a hard time finding a home for some of the items like very old textbooks, but please look into something like the Friends of the Library. Our local group has a popular book store where they sell donated books, and sometimes for large collections they have special sales. (I'm not in the DC area.)

[Anonymous]

Another suggestion--a DV shelter or homeless shelter.

I was once homeless and stayed in a shelter for a month. One thing that helped my sanity was a shelf of donated books. Range of trash and large print and Christian fiction and whatnot but I know I found some gems in there (don't recall which by now).

[Anonymous]

Here are the last few books I took from an LFL:

Flea's Autobiography (Red Hot Chili Peppers)
Nerd Wisdom book...quotes from movies like Star Wars
Book with parody versions of Impressionist art

Books I bought at library most recently:

Magritte book with mostly b&w pictures (old)
Japanese heraldic crests
History of the Massachusetts Adams family

Pretty sure my choices are equally eclectic from either source.

[Anonymous]

Really old ones, trash them. But ones that aren’t in bad shape, download the Thriftbooks app - you can scan the ISBN to see what Thriftbooks will give you for them in buyback. They send you a shipping label and all you do is mail them back and they put money in PayPal or your Thriftbooks acct. I had hundreds of books sitting around and I tried taking them to Little Free Libraries but none of them had any space. I sold 3 boxes of books (approximately 40 books each box) to Thriftbooks and got like $130 for clearing out my house.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Little Free Library. I see a wild assortment of books in those.

I've been putting in a few books weekly as I've been decluttering, and it helps. But it sounds like OP has hundreds of books she needs to offload.

Meh. Free little library would take NYT best sellers, but not the others.

What do you mean? Nobody is monitoring the books people put in those boxes.

What are you talking about? Lots of little free libraries have someone who regularly goes through them and cycles out the books that no one has taken in months.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It's OK to toss/ recycle. I absolve you.

-- A Librarian.

This. I felt so wonderful when I freed myself of hundreds of books I was never going to read again.