Today’s Book Blogger Hop question is: What do you do with books you no longer want? Do you donate them? Do you take them to a half-price bookstore? Does a friend or family member benefit?
This doesn’t happen very often to me, because I only buy books I believe will “wear well,” as my good friend L. M. Montgomery once said. The vast majority of the books I read come from the library, so the ones I buy I expect to keep for the long-term; I fully expect that a good percentage of my books will someday (in fifty or sixty years, you know) be sorted out by my heirs.
But sometimes books don’t have quite that staying power, and a book that I loved for a season no longer seems like one I want to give shelf space to. And I guess it happens often enough because I do have a policy around it–all unwanted books are donated to the library. I take so many out, it seems only fair to put some back in.
My favorite book cycle is when I buy a book at the library warehouse sale (because at a dollar each, sometimes I do buy those unread), read it and then donate it back to the library.
What do you do with no-longer-wanted books? I don’t read digital books myself, but do you find the arrival of ebooks is affecting this question, or impacting how often you have books to discard?
I have a stack of unwanted books at present – but they are mostly academic, and a bit out of date. I had a browse on Amazon marketplace to see if it was worth trying to sell them there. I think shipping costs would make it untenable, really. So.. what to do with them? Currently in a box in a corner.
When I have read a book which I don’t think is a keeper, I will either: pass it on to friends or family who I think will enjoy or donate it to a charity shop. However since getting my Kindle I have a lot less books to find new homes for. I general read new books/authors on there to try them out, as they take up no physical space and that means now, I generally only buy physical books I already love or by favourite authors.
I give my unwanted books to Goodwill. However, since I started using my e-reader a lot more, I have far fewer to donate. If I don’t want to keep a book there, I can just delete it. Haven’t done that very much, but will cull my digital library now and then.