For context: I live in a small, rural, southern OH town. I had a little free time after picking up dinner, and there’s a new Goodwill right next to the grocery store that I’d never visited, so I thought I’d check it out.
I went straight to the tiny little book shelf, not much bigger than my shelf at home. I looked through the first two shelves and found nothing but cookbooks, a Tom Brady biography, and lots of John Grisham and Nora Roberts.
Finally, getting to the third and final section, as if it were illuminated by a divine light, I found it: Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward, hardback.
I just read Salvage the Bones before the new year, and it quickly took a spot in my favorite books of 2023. I mean, wtf, I have literally never found anything of interest at any thrift shop where I live, especially not a contemporary title like that.
What books have you guys found at the most seemingly random places?
by OTO-Nate
16 Comments
I found a signed, numbered hardbound edition of collected Doonesbury comic strips at a public library book sale for $2
I found The Elementals by Michael McDowell in a Little Free Library in my town. Not a super rare book or anything, but I had been wanting to pick up a copy for years and always kept an eye out for it at bookstores, so I was really excited.
There used to be a free book swap near me in Cardiff. I got so many great reads from there, a biography on Charlotte Bronte, a signed hardcover of a folk tale inspired book. Angela Carter and others. It was brilliant, sadly it was later decommissioned by council I think. I also had to go home and had to leave so many amazing books behind as I couldn’t get them back to Australia. It was a part of the lockdown that I remember fondly, there wasn’t much to do but go for walks and read books. A positive in what was a hard time.
I’m a volunteer at a library. When we help sorting through donations and filling the shelves for a book sale, we get first picks and can choose up to 15 books for free. So far I found the Father Brown Mysteries, a nicely bound hardcover collection of Shakespeare’s works and the biography of a jewish actor who escaped the holocaust due his mother’s courage and quick thinking and the help of several people who hid them.
The Watson Years: When Roadsters Ruled The Speedway. Signed by the late A.J. Watson. $2.99 at Goodwill.
An early (1970’s) leather-bound printing of The More than Complete Hitchhiker’s Guide by Douglas Adams at an Elks Lodge book sale when I was 13.
It was 25 cents.
I had to get rid of it a decade later due to an apocalyptic bed bug infestation. I still wish I’d kept just that one book.
I found a complete set of blue bound first and second editions Ruyard Kiplings at a carboot sale, paid about 5 quid for them
Two weeks later in a Oxfam books shop I found a set of red bound Kiplings, paid a quid.
Best finds in my life.
I was thinking about reading The Witcher series and I found the whole series at once, $3 each.
Lots of brand new books too, like released in the last month, for $3-4.
It’s gotten to the point where I don’t even bother to get new books unless I want to read it immediately, because I’ll see it in the thrift store eventually.
There’s a really big book swapping place in my city – 8 full shelves of books – and I usually find a couple of books to take home and check out. But the Wheel of Time hardcovers I found there last year are still a very rare find because Fantasy books (that aren’t Twilight) are very uncommon. It’s usually contemporary, thrillers and classics … and of course the inevitable cookbooks.
I picked up a copy of Mots d’Heures: Gousses, Rames for $0.25 at a library book sale about 10 years ago. I was pretty stoked because it’s been out of print for ages.
Found a first edition of “on the beach” by Nevil shute in Oxfam for £5… One of my favourite books of all time
This is silly, but I really wanted to read Jaws last year. Incredibly popular book. St. Louis has two or three really good book fairs every year where most mass market paperbacks are $.50 or $1. Some time in the spring, I did see a copy at HPB for $3, but I told myself, *no. I’m not going to read it today. Wait till the book fair. There are going to be a million copies for $.50.*
My mom found it at a used book store for $6 and I told her to leave it.
The book fairs come and go. No Jaws. Not a single one.
Go to HPB. None in stock. Matter of fact, none in stock anywhere in the St. Louis area (we have three stores.)
In October, I’m looking at the estate sale app (I like hunting for St. Louis Blues collectibles). Didn’t really feel like going out, but then starting me in the face, one of the pictures of a smattering of books is Jaws staring me in the face. 45 minute drive. Third day of the sale. No way they still have it. But I was also hungry. Went to the sale. It’s there. $3. Go to the cashier with the lone book in my hand. She was friendly and I was the only person in line. She says, “Ooh, good find.” Surely just being polite. I tell her a condensed version of the above story, and she says, “You know what? You’ve worked really hard for this book, just take it.”
Of course, I could have (and probably should have) just bought a copy online. But I got a good story out of it (despite my terrible storytelling skills.)
It was good, btw (except for an additional storyline element that I hated that’s not in the movie.)
I found a 1908 first edition copy of A Woman’s Way through Unknown Labrador by Mina Hubbard at an estate sale. Sounded interesting enough to look up and found a copy in worse condition on eBay offered for $1200!
Got it for $1 and offered it for the low, low price of $1100. Got told the price was ridiculous, which I readily admitted to, comparing the person selling a $1200 copy to the cobbler who “just needs to sell one pair of $5 million shoes”. 🙂
Happily settled for $150 plus filling a hole in someone’s collection.
it wasn’t super valuable but I was determined to find a backgammon board and I went to the Arc in Denver and found one in no time. I love the thrift shops in Denver.
My biggest find was a CT state register, it’s a book that compiles all the government information and the people involved on the Fed/state/local Gov, and put out each year by the Secretary of the State for CT. Only the copy I got was not only one of the 250 leather bound copies that year, but also inscribed on the title page by the CT Secretary of the State herself.
I’ve found a couple Persephone books at HPB. I found a couple nice old hardbacks and the collected Zelda Fitzgerald at a used bookstore when I visited a friend in SC.