Is it worth browsing through second-hand bookstores and thrift stores?

is it worth browsing through second-hand bookstores and thrift stores?

Idk why dont you try it and let us know?

Depends. I've had a lot of success with it, finding out of print works by Hamsun and Strindberg, and dirt cheap works by Tolstoy.

It'll take some footwork to find good stores though, many of the ones I were in had nothing but crime fiction and ghostwritten memoirs by b-list celebrities.

>nothing but crime fiction and ghostwritten memoirs by b-list celebrities.

that's what I feared. I think I will give it a shot. It would be amazing to find something like a super cheap Tolstoy.

Yeah you'll find stuff you never thought you'd want. I went looking for D.H. Lawrence and I found two supplementary texts for his works

I've had good experiences. Once bought ~10 books for ~5 bucks, which included Pynchon, Freud, Roth, and their goodies.

I sometimes get lucky. I found both of these at the same place.

"white over black" is really interesting and totally devoid of political correctness.
The other is like something straight from Mad Men.

does it organize their books?
if yes, they're usually worth it

if no... don't even bother

my local thrift has a section vaguely titled "literature" which is basically where they put everything that isn't shitty genre fiction, self help books, cook books, or romance novels for your mum

Depends on what you're looking for. Sometimes you'll find things that haven't been reprinted for decades and are hard to get any other way. There's no point going in and looking for stuff that's in print and easily available on Amazon.

Depends where you live. College towns are best, because graduating students tend to sell off their books wholesale to the nearest store.

You can get some amazing bargains, simply because print media isn't valued so much anymore. Scoring a rare book for peanuts is a great feeling. It's like browsing second-hand CD stores used to be, before they all closed down. Enjoy it while it lasts.

well I went to my local thirft store and it was a mixture of terrible romance, your standard airport novels and some good (and bad) fiction.

I grabbed Stephen Greenblatt's biography of Shakespeare and Thomas L Friedman's 'The World is Flat' for $9 (australian here).

When I have a whole day to myself I might visit more than one store and have a really good inspection of the non-fiction. There was some amazing cover work, but the books tended to be garbage.

what kind of fucking stupid ass retard question is this?

the dollar bins at my local BMVs are on point. I never pay more than $3 for a book.

Yes, I found myself a copy of The Devils Dictionary for five dollars. A fifth printing from 1943 but still awesome.

>LITERATURE, n. The collective body of the writings of all mankind, excepting Hubert Howe Bancroft and AdairWelcker. Theirs are Illiterature.

Yeah OP id say its well worth it. My local second-hand bookstore is great and if you come often enough they usually give you discount on the already cheap as fuck books. Not to mention they always smell good and sometimes have bookmarks and notes still inside them.

Have you ever even been to a thrift store? Literally every one is different. The thrift store by my job is one of the best used books in the city, the prices are dirt cheap and they get a good selection from the neighborhood, ive found a lot of classics as well as some more current finds that were pretty good. You just gotta go to the store to see what they have. And don't forget you have to go back, the good stuff isn't the stuff that sticks around, and you aren't the only one that goes there.

Value Village is dece but is expensive, like five bucks a book. I prefer to go to used bookstores, and I know the ones around town and what they're like, so I know what to expect to get there. Pretty much all of my Philip K. Dick has come from one used bookstore, the owner specifically collects his titles.

>There's no point going in and looking for stuff that's in print and easily available on Amazon
Eh? Are the much lower prices not a factor? Books in my local charity shops are between around one third and one tenth of the price they'd be new. One has been doing a sale with three books for a quid.

Depends on your city. Tokyo, New York, etc. absolutely. Podunk Mississippi, not so much.

It's all relative.

Depends on whether or not you like the search. I enjoy browsing used bookstores cause you never know what you'll find, from a book on learning hebrew with george bush to a persian-language version of bill clinton's biography, to a book of japanese photography which I found out later had a bunch of family photos in it from the previous owner.

But if you go in just hoping to find something in particular, you're going to have a bad time.

Podunk Mississippi might still be good if there's a University of Podunk, Mississippi.

I used to hit 3 or 4 op shops a week, usually I'd walk away with half a dozen books. Mostly classics, but also best sellers. I went last week and picked up a whole bunch of Greek stuff, acopy of the dfw's pale king, Mishima's decay of the angel, dellilo's and algren's the man with the golden arm. I went home having spent less than $20 feeling like I'd robbed a Veeky Forums dorm room

Yes, it's worth it. And if you don't find any books you like you can always pick up something you need, like a t-shirt or some jewelry. Whenever you find a good book at a thrift store, you find a /really/ good book.

>implying Veeky Forumsizens aren't located in rural communities
wrong. nothing like the comfy silence of my little village, rifling through pages of Tom Jones, drinking tea, the occasional request to fix your lunatic neighbor's computer (she is convinced that someone is pumping gas into her home, controlling her mind, i've seen her home, it's been torn apart, the walls are all outside on a truckbed next to her home)

you sit there and tell me that isn't a ripe character to write about. tell me that i couldn't write a compelling novel about my drug dealing neighbor with loads of cocaine in his barn. tell me i don't look over at my library and feel the swelling of pride, tell me i don't go to the salvation army in the adjoining small town, and see the books they truck in from the city center 2 hours away, and i find choice translations of the odyssey, and comfy copies of classics for 25 cents a piece, and 2 for one on thursdays. you just try and tell me that this aint Veeky Forums, punk.

Yes, I got this sexy beast just yesterday for 18 dollarydoos, good as new. Leather bound and gilded pages.
>lord jim
>nigger of the Narcissus
>typhoon
>nostromo
Previously bought a nice copy of crime and punishment as well.

You paid way too much

Damn that's comfy