― Madchen (Madchen), Friday, 6 May 2005 11:45 (eighteen years ago) link
― Madchen (Madchen), Friday, 6 May 2005 11:46 (eighteen years ago) link
Make Your Baby Fall Asleep
Etc.
― PJ Miller (PJ Miller), Friday, 6 May 2005 12:07 (eighteen years ago) link
It did remind me of another definite addition to this thread though: Coelho's Alchemist.I'm tempted to add Gibran's The Prophet as well, though I didn't see that there. For some reason I've seen a "gift edition" of it everywhere as of late.
― Øystein (Øystein), Friday, 6 May 2005 12:43 (eighteen years ago) link
The books I saw most copies of:Amalie Skram - Hellemyrsfolket (three copies)Frederick Forsyth - Day of the jackal (five copies, mostly Norwegian translations)
― Øystein (Øystein), Friday, 6 May 2005 15:14 (eighteen years ago) link
I fear that The Da Vinci Code may finally have reached saturation point. I've had a copy in the window for two days and no-one's bought it. If no-one buys it this weekend, I'll know I can stop asking people I see reading it to donate it when they've finished.
― accentmonkey (accentmonkey), Friday, 6 May 2005 16:31 (eighteen years ago) link
Philip Roth's Goodbye Columbus, Our Gang, and Portnoy's Complaint are always big thrift store staples. Same with Shogun.
― kyle (akmonday), Friday, 6 May 2005 18:42 (eighteen years ago) link
― Ken L (Ken L), Friday, 6 May 2005 19:12 (eighteen years ago) link
― Casuistry (Chris P), Friday, 6 May 2005 19:44 (eighteen years ago) link
― Ken L (Ken L), Friday, 6 May 2005 19:56 (eighteen years ago) link
― Ken L (Ken L), Friday, 6 May 2005 20:01 (eighteen years ago) link
― Ken L (Ken L), Friday, 6 May 2005 20:27 (eighteen years ago) link
― Ken L (Ken L), Friday, 6 May 2005 20:29 (eighteen years ago) link
― Ken L (Ken L), Friday, 6 May 2005 20:38 (eighteen years ago) link
― kyle (akmonday), Friday, 6 May 2005 20:49 (eighteen years ago) link
Has anyone here ever (a) noticed that a book was constantly in the charity shops and (b) then decided to buy it just to see what it was all about (knowing full well how difficult it would be to see off afterwards)?
― Casuistry (Chris P), Saturday, 7 May 2005 18:06 (eighteen years ago) link
― Sinead, Sunday, 8 May 2005 15:06 (eighteen years ago) link
It's weird about 'Good Behaviour'. I really like this book but never would have known what to expect from it in advance - has it been really badly marketed over the years or something?
― Archel (Archel), Monday, 9 May 2005 15:46 (eighteen years ago) link
― holojames (holojames), Monday, 9 May 2005 17:04 (eighteen years ago) link
― Casuistry (Chris P), Monday, 9 May 2005 18:17 (eighteen years ago) link
Umm, The God of Small Things. Or anything else with stickers about winning prestigious literary prizes that people buy to put on their coffee table and make them look smart.
― Liz :x (Liz :x), Tuesday, 10 May 2005 08:15 (eighteen years ago) link
― Markelby (Mark C), Saturday, 14 May 2005 11:32 (eighteen years ago) link
books clogging up shelfspace in the near future :lord of the ringsatkins dietda vinci code
― zappi (joni), Saturday, 14 May 2005 13:56 (eighteen years ago) link
― dja, Saturday, 14 May 2005 15:04 (eighteen years ago) link
I guess most of the books in s/h shops have orig. been given as gifts, a la "Hey, this character reminds a bit me of X, I'll give it to them for their birthday", hence all the Br. Jones, Nick Hornby & their imitators. 20 or so years ago, these type of shops were full of Kingsley Amis etc for much the same reason I imagine.
― bham, Monday, 23 May 2005 08:58 (eighteen years ago) link
― kyle (akmonday), Monday, 23 May 2005 21:56 (eighteen years ago) link
― PJ Miller (PJ Miller), Tuesday, 24 May 2005 07:58 (eighteen years ago) link
http://www.tomwolfe.com/images/covers/ManinFull.jpg
― Suzy Creemcheese (SuzyCreemcheese), Tuesday, 21 June 2005 19:47 (eighteen years ago) link
― Beth Parker, Monday, 15 August 2005 19:42 (eighteen years ago) link
― accentmonkey (accentmonkey), Monday, 15 August 2005 20:37 (eighteen years ago) link
― jed_ (jed), Monday, 15 August 2005 21:39 (eighteen years ago) link
His other ones even more so, I think because they're worse so people just want to get rid of them out of their houses. Plus we had three copies in one week of a book that's being described in its blurb as the thinking person's DVC. One man brought it into the shop, put it on the counter and said "you can have this, it's RUBBISH!"
And good god, you could drown in Robert Jordans.
― accentmonkey (accentmonkey), Tuesday, 16 August 2005 06:46 (eighteen years ago) link
― Øystein (Øystein), Tuesday, 16 August 2005 07:29 (eighteen years ago) link
― vahid (vahid), Tuesday, 16 August 2005 08:22 (eighteen years ago) link
― Aimless (Aimless), Tuesday, 16 August 2005 14:56 (eighteen years ago) link
― Beth Parker, Friday, 26 August 2005 13:13 (eighteen years ago) link
― David Aldridge, Friday, 7 October 2005 01:48 (eighteen years ago) link
― accentmonkey (accentmonkey), Saturday, 8 October 2005 00:15 (eighteen years ago) link
― k/l (Ken L), Saturday, 8 October 2005 00:24 (eighteen years ago) link
― sp@m, Tuesday, 6 June 2006 00:42 (seventeen years ago) link
― Beth Parker (Beth Parker), Wednesday, 7 June 2006 17:46 (seventeen years ago) link
Less so nowadays, but hardbacks of The Cloister and the Hearth by Charles Reade used to haunt every second-hand shop I'd go into, especially the 25p random table. Also, The Romany Rye and/or Lavengro by George Borrow.In poetry sections, creaky editions of Sir Walter Scott's poems. Some form of Dennis Wheatley, usu The Devil Rides Out, often a red hardback (see also: editions of Wheatley as ornamental books-by-the-yard in pubs).
― woofwoofwoof, Wednesday, 13 May 2009 15:03 (fourteen years ago) link
http://g-ecx.images-amazon.com/images/G/01/ciu/ce/cd/2fd5b2c008a039b0672ca010.L._AA240_.jpg
― Old Big 'OOS (AKA the Cupwinner) (darraghmac), Wednesday, 13 May 2009 15:06 (fourteen years ago) link
Lavrengo! I picked this up recently from a second-hand bookshop but aborted reading after about a page. No particular reason. I just couldn't be arsed, and it clearly wasn't going to be another The Bible in Spain.
Macaulay's History of England, usually in some uninvitingly cumbersome format.
― The Fairy Josser (GamalielRatsey), Wednesday, 13 May 2009 15:10 (fourteen years ago) link
Those red hardback Dennis Wheatley books were part of a Reader's Digest set, I think every house in the UK/Ireland had them in the '80's.
Probably a correlation with other books that appear on tthis list a RD offers.
― Old Big 'OOS (AKA the Cupwinner) (darraghmac), Wednesday, 13 May 2009 15:11 (fourteen years ago) link
Yes, suspect that RD are responsible for much of this. Looking at charity shop bookshelf of hardbacks from a distance, getting closer and realising they're all Readers Digest Condensed Books is always a gloomy experience.
― woofwoofwoof, Wednesday, 13 May 2009 15:52 (fourteen years ago) link
Macaulay's History of England? You go to some classy charity shops.
"Breakfast at Tiffanys by Truman Capote - the small green edition that came free with some womens magazine"I had this and never realised before, huh.
― thomp, Wednesday, 13 May 2009 16:14 (fourteen years ago) link
Classics of 19th-Century literature in TV/movie tie-in editions.
For the past couple of years: A Night Without Armor, poems by the briefly popular singer Jewel. Her moment of fame is so over.
― Aimless, Wednesday, 13 May 2009 17:59 (fourteen years ago) link
tom wolfe's a man in full has been at every book sale ive ever been to
― johnny crunch, Wednesday, 13 May 2009 18:11 (fourteen years ago) link
Kate Morton, The House At Riverton - has the same spine as another book I'd been looking for, every charity shop has piles of the things and none of whatever it was I was after
― Ismael Klata, Wednesday, 9 March 2011 13:55 (thirteen years ago) link
http://www.swordfishingcentral.com/images/store/400182188292.jpg
― A Very Small Bag of Phrases (Eazy), Wednesday, 9 March 2011 17:30 (thirteen years ago) link
That Hoggart's still in print, it seems:
http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/P/0141191589.01._SCLZZZZZZZ_.jpg
― the most cuddlesome bug that ever was borned (James Morrison), Wednesday, 9 March 2011 23:06 (thirteen years ago) link
was at a p large tent book sale today where i saw a volunteer file in an entire box full of 'me talk pretty one day', prob 20 copies plus there were already a bunch around that section & im sure elsewhere
― johnny crunch, Saturday, 16 July 2011 22:22 (twelve years ago) link
When I used to volunteer in a charity shop we once received a massive hardback copy of the Karma Sutra, we used to sit it facing with the cover forward (as opposed to just the spine, like a normal bookshelf) and laugh at people trying not to pick it up/skim it/acknowledge it.
We also used to get Mills & Boon constantly and they would sell so fast, which I just don't understand - there seems to be about three different plots between the entire series.
― ha ha ha ha jack my swag (boxedjoy), Saturday, 16 July 2011 23:24 (twelve years ago) link
Ah, I've bored people with how I was in an apartment in Berlin with just 25 Mills and Boon books and War and Peace. I got through about 12 of the M&B before finally succumbing. They were all pretty much bored suburban housewife with either unpleasant/dead/no husband meets in what all things considered must be really quite unlikely circumstances an uncontrollably rich arab stud farmer/american pilot entrepreneur/russian oligarch/unbuttoned English toff/sensitive Italian playboy. This man will be generally unusually liberal, loving, wealthy, sexually accomplished, and see things in the woman others haven't and in certain cases won't mind that the woman has children in fact be surprisingly good with them. In return the woman will educate them a little in aspects of life that their rude, uncontrollably masculine/wealthy upbringing hasn't educated them in, idk like buying a can of beans from the supermarket or getting the right settings on the washing machine. They will feel enlightened by this. There will be a couple of hiccups of some sort, one where the woman can't believe that this man is interested in them, and another where it looks like it's not going to work out, but incredibly and against the odds he is and it does.
I believe that chick lit has posed quite a few problems for the traditional Mills & Boon template, which is known to be exacting. Some female readers, it turns out, like to be seen to be more emancipated that the traditional Mills & Boon story had allowed them to be, and maybe even show glimpses of feisty humour and cynical indifference towards males. This was quite difficult to embrace for M&B, and I think what happened was that they started producing a different series, for the more emancipated urban style of woman. I haven't read any of these, so I don't how they work, but I imagine that although the flavour and expressions might be slightly different, the plot probably isn't. Maybe the male is a bit more flawed, maybe the woman has more agency in it all, but i can't believe it doesn't end with an unusually desirable man being netted. Or maybe it does, idk. There's probably no more literary merit, although to be fair to M&B, there's clearly not a word out of place, which while it means the reader knows what they are getting, also means there are no flights of fancy. Reading 10 in a row is rather gruelling is all I'm saying.
To change tack slightly, just going past Oxfam this morning, wtf is London Dialogues by 'Tiresias'. I keep getting Cyril Connolly in my head, but that could just be 'London' + 'myth ref'.
― Fizzles the Chimp (GamalielRatsey), Sunday, 17 July 2011 07:10 (twelve years ago) link
The Light in the Piazza- I see it at flea markets, church thrift stores, library book sales, garage sales, on shelves at estate sales, Savers, Goodwill, Salvation Army and it has been at every library I have ever worked in, of course. Book has been haunting me for 22 years.
― *tera, Sunday, 17 July 2011 07:35 (twelve years ago) link
Checked that London Dialogues book. self, published, Some boring-ass '80s Hampstead types talking about the state of the country. Nothing to see here.
― Fizzles the Chimp (GamalielRatsey), Sunday, 17 July 2011 12:15 (twelve years ago) link
Things I didn't know until I started working in a library: Mills & Boon used to put out introductory science books for schools in the 60s and 70s.http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51AlUTXu39L._SL500_AA300_.jpg http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51kf5N0mFtL._SL500_AA300_.jpg http://www.amazon.co.uk/Religion-science-Science-society-Habgood/dp/B0000CM8JZ/ref=sr_1_149?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1310912344&sr=1-149
Never seen one in a charity shop, though.
― the ascent of nyan (a passing spacecadet), Sunday, 17 July 2011 14:33 (twelve years ago) link
Reccently every bookshop I've been in has a copy (often more than one) of this.http://applecrossantiques.co.uk/images/JamesHerriotsYorkshire%20(260x300).jpgIt's actually a rather nice book.
― Ned Trifle X, Tuesday, 30 August 2011 07:38 (twelve years ago) link
the satanic verses
― lag∞n, Tuesday, 24 December 2013 21:06 (ten years ago) link
Couplehood
― zanarkand bozo (abanana), Wednesday, 25 December 2013 03:34 (ten years ago) link
seeing tons of updike esp the rabbit series @ book sales this season, prob means ppl who owned them have recently died :(
― johnny crunch, Monday, 24 July 2017 02:40 (six years ago) link
Just walked by neighborhood streetseller and they had a more interesting selection than usual, such as The Sound and The Fury, then I, the Jury then a copy of Sanctuary and Requiem for a Nun with a SEXY PHOTOE of Lee Remick on the cover.
― Recnac and my 📛 is Yrral (James Redd and the Blecchs), Saturday, 17 November 2018 21:04 (five years ago) link
Sanctuary with Requiem for a Nun
― Recnac and my 📛 is Yrral (James Redd and the Blecchs), Saturday, 17 November 2018 21:20 (five years ago) link
Also The Portable Oscar Wilde, Three by Flannery O’Connor, The Threepenny Opera
― Recnac and my 📛 is Yrral (James Redd and the Blecchs), Saturday, 17 November 2018 21:21 (five years ago) link
Little Fauss and Big Halsy, Bonjour Tristesse, Elmer Gantry, The Hound of the Baskervilles, DO U SEE?
― Recnac and my 📛 is Yrral (James Redd and the Blecchs), Saturday, 17 November 2018 21:23 (five years ago) link
Cloud Atlas has been fairly common in the charity shops recently.
― Leaghaidh am brón an t-anam bochd (dowd), Saturday, 17 November 2018 22:33 (five years ago) link
Cloud Atlas mittelbraus its way thru every charity shop in the world
― Danton Lok (Noodle Vague), Saturday, 17 November 2018 22:48 (five years ago) link
Still no sign of Morrissey's Autobiography. I was sure it would be a straight-to-charity release.
― fetter, Tuesday, 27 November 2018 13:18 (five years ago) link
I see it quite a lot, up here (Glasgow). Never see his novel, though (probably because it never sold any copies to begin with).
― Ward Fowler, Tuesday, 27 November 2018 13:53 (five years ago) link
the 50 shades of grey and twilight series are ubiquitous ime
― sign up for my waterless urinals webinar (bizarro gazzara), Tuesday, 27 November 2018 13:53 (five years ago) link
https://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2016/03/23/09/32732A7A00000578-3505687-image-a-30_1458726175497.jpg
― Ward Fowler, Tuesday, 27 November 2018 13:55 (five years ago) link
The version of Running Dog with the awesome/trashy thriller cover
https://www.jhbooks.com/pictures/medium/152271.jpg
― Chuck_Tatum, Thursday, 29 November 2018 16:35 (five years ago) link
And "Offshore" (although obvs it is vv good)
― Chuck_Tatum, Thursday, 29 November 2018 16:36 (five years ago) link
That Delillo cover is like the canine answer version to Alan Coren's Golfing For Cats
https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51P%2BJhTELDL._SX322_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg
― Ward Fowler, Thursday, 29 November 2018 16:45 (five years ago) link
Yikes! My thoughts went "Awww, a cat playing golf... cool sweater... er, swastika"
― Chuck_Tatum, Thursday, 29 November 2018 17:02 (five years ago) link
it's a collection of coren's never very funny columns in punch magazine, so named bcz he -- amusingly! -- noted that the topselling books of the time were abt either cats or golf or hitler, so proposed a title that somehow combined them all
― mark s, Thursday, 29 November 2018 17:08 (five years ago) link
This being Oregon, I never fail to see multiple copies of Krakauer's Into the Wild. Sometimes there will be a round dozen of them shelved side-by-side. They are more prevalent even than Wild, Cheryl Strayed, which rarely shows up in herds greater than five at once.
I still see some of the Bridget Jones series of novels, but they are fading away to obscurity after a period of ubiquity. Tom Clancy is finally sinking into the sunset, too.
― A is for (Aimless), Tuesday, 26 February 2019 02:54 (five years ago) link
Just dropped off a bunch of books (and some CDs) at Housing Works. Wondering whether I am going to that freeing feeling or an emotional hangover/backlash or both and in what order or in what intensity.
― The Fearless Thread Killers (James Redd and the Blecchs), Monday, 2 September 2019 16:29 (four years ago) link
The past four or five years I've noticed that Nicholas Sparks' novels occupy at least two feet of shelf space in all the charity bookshops I frequent.
― A is for (Aimless), Monday, 2 September 2019 17:06 (four years ago) link
Entire shelves for James Patterson
― brimstead, Monday, 2 September 2019 17:19 (four years ago) link
entire warehouses filled with gently used Elegance of the Hedgehog trade paperbacks
― hoostanbank de reason lyrics mp4 hd video download (unregistered), Monday, 2 September 2019 17:35 (four years ago) link