Books you've found in thrift stores, shops, and at sales? -

[AnotherForumUser]

These are some recent finds of mine at a book sale.

The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice
The Left Against Europe? By Tom Nairn
A book containing essays by T.H. Huxley
The Firmament of Time by Loren Eiseley
By Jove! Brush Up On Your Mythology by Michael Macrone
A book containing a transcript of the Constitution of the United States and the Declaration of Independence
The Age of Imperialism by Robin W. Winks
British Politics In The Collectivist Age by Samuel H. Beer
Liberalism by L.T. Hobhouse
Mediaeval Feudalism by Carl Stephenson
The Peasant in Nineteenth-Century Russia edited by Wayne S. Vucinch
The Mystics of Islam by Reynold A. Nicholson
A Cultural History of Russia by Joel Carmichael
God's Smuggler by Brother Andrew
Europe Divided 1559-1598 by J.H. Elliott

 

[c-no]

If a flea market counts, I bought three books from a flea market a few weeks back. One on the D&D license of Ravenloft, another on Shadowrun, and the last being The Last Wish, a book written by the guy whose work would later be used for The Witcher games.

 

[Gym Leader Elesa]

I once found the entire poetic collections of Keats & Shelby for thirteen cents. Incidentally, the great epic of my people, Evangeline, apparently goes for about one U.S. quarter dollar.

 

[GingerDixie]

I didn't buy this, but a friend did from a book sale and gave it to me because it's one of my favorite pieces of classical literature besides The Divine Comedy: an edition of Arabian Nights that I believe was published in the 1910's. It's in pretty good shape for a book that old, and the pages are like rice paper, but it's the complete anthology. It was an incredible find and I'm now forever in his debt for it.

 

[Bogs]

I got a fantastic second edition of Thomas Wolfe's Look Homeward, Angel, and a first edition paperback of Franny & Zooey

 

[LagoonaBlue]

I usually tend to buy children's picture books for my niece in charity shops as if I buy books for myself at all I usually buy Kindle or ebook copies because I'm a lazy shit who finds it easier to read at the computer. However I did buy the following for myself:

Faust I by Goethe (can't remember which edition or who the translator was)
Lady Chatterley's Lover by D. H. Lawrence
Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe
Neuromancer by William Gibson (which I gave to my dad as I'd already read it, thought he'd enjoy it)
A Mills and Boon novel (bought it at the same time as Moll Flanders, reason being the charity shop I bought it in had the books on a 2 for £1 offer so I felt like I should get another book, that was the only other one that caught my attention)
A couple of Enid Blyton's Famous Five novels (because I'm a big kid, really. I used to love her books when I was younger, I also thought they'd be a nice thing to have around for my niece when she gets older)

 

[SpessCaptain]

I worked at a Thrift Store, lemme tell you how many self-help books I had to get rid of.

 

[LagoonaBlue]

I worked at a Thrift Store, lemme tell you how many self-help books I had to get rid of.

I did volunteer work in a charity shop the summer before I started uni. I can kinda understand this. The shop I worked in threw away a LOT of old annuals from the 70s and 80s, in particular sports ones. They were OK with selling ones based on comic books though.

 

[BatNapalm]

I found a pretty rare book at a flea market when I was visiting my hometown for labor day vacation. It's a trade paperback omnibus edition of the Valis Trilogy by Philip K Dick and not just any ol' edition either.

This one. Cost me all of $2.

When I got it home I noticed something strange....it had no barcode or ISBN. Turns out, it's a Quality paperback Book Club exclusive from 1990 and I've seen near-mint copies go for $85-90 online. Granted, the spine shows a bit of wear so if I were to sell it (lol not gonna happen), I probably couldn't get that kind of money for it. But still, pretty cool to stumble on uncommon things when you least expect them.

In the same haul, I picked up a really nice trade paperback edition of "In Cold Blood" by Truman Capote (another $2) and some high-literate in the form of the mass-market paperback "Space Cops" trilogy from the early 90s. The cover art was just too amazing for me to pass up.

 

[AnotherForumUser]

I worked at a Thrift Store, lemme tell you how many self-help books I had to get rid of.

If you look hard enough, you'll find some nice book in thrift stores. I once found an English translation of Tao Te Ching, the Communist Manifesto, and 1984 in a Goodwill. But yeah, I get what you mean. I have to wade through piles of self-help garbage in order to get to the good stuff in thrift store book sections.

 

[Zeorus]

When I first came to Memphis for my grad school visit, I found an awesome secondhand bookstore in Midtown (the hipster district for people who don't want to deal with all the tourists in Downtown). Got a copy of The Screwtape Letters there for my wife.

 

[fire_fly]

I found an old, but still in very good condition, copy of "The Last Unicorn" by Peter S. Beagle in a used bookstore once. There's lots of gems to be found, you just have to rummage through a lot of crap in order to find them. Some of my favorite books were blind purchases from used bookstores.

And I'm not sure if it counts, but my mom bought a pile of old records from a collector's yard sale for like $20 and a lot of them were original pressings of 60's and 70's classic albums. Including a very old, very fragile copy of Meet the Beatles.

 

[NQ 952]

Yep, I've found books there.

 

[XYZpdq]

My mom found a hardcover omnibus of the Illuminatus! trilogy for me at a thrift store one time.

 

[NyQuilninja]

just found a copy of hardcover of

$1.99
And

Alice's Adventures Underground : A Facsimile of the Original Lewis Carroll 2.99$ Darwin Britannica Great Books of the Western World Vintage 1952 Hardcover Chicago University free Sociobiology: The New Synthesis, Twenty Fifth Anniversary Edition Free Just a small bit I've found

 

[Kaede Did Nothing Wrong]

just found a copy of hardcover of

View attachment 1252698
$1.99
And

Alice's Adventures Underground : A Facsimile of the Original Lewis Carroll View attachment 1252708 2.99$ Darwin Britannica Great Books of the Western World Vintage 1952 Hardcover Chicago University free Sociobiology: The New Synthesis, Twenty Fifth Anniversary Edition Free Just a small bit I've found

did you really bump a 4 year old thread to tell everyone you bought the Hitler book?

 

[NyQuilninja]

did you really bump a 4 year old thread to tell everyone you bought the Hitler book?

Didn’t realize this thread was that old
I go treasure hunting for books at thrift stores on a regular basis I even found a rare Stephen kings Richard Bachman collection with the removed story rage sadly I no longer have it
Thought it’s a fun thread

 

[Orion Balls]

Children's book from 1889. Cost a quarter.

 

[Autumnal Equinox]

Found a copy of Tom Sawyer from the mid 20's once for a dollar.

Nothing particularly special or valuable, but I was able to grab about 50 or 60 issues of 90s era Nintendo Power at a garage sale for about $15

 

[From The Uncanny Valley]

Spent nearly all my holiday money ome year on an old giant 80's collection of Fantasy and Science Fiction issues at Savers. Maybe someday I'll read them...