Notes on Buying Used Books Online
I buy almost all of my books used. This started as a financial decision when I was younger and has since become a preference. There's something about a new book — the pristine cover, the uncreased spine, the faint smell of whatever chemicals they use in modern printing — that feels impersonal. A used book has been somewhere. Someone else read it, or at least intended to. Occasionally you find a margin note or an old receipt used as a bookmark, and for a moment you're connected to a stranger's reading life.
That said, I should be honest: the main reason I buy used is that I buy a lot of books, and buying them new at full price would be financially irresponsible given my income and the rate at which I acquire them. Used books make the habit sustainable. A three-dollar paperback doesn't trigger the same guilt as a twenty-eight-dollar hardcover, even if the shelf space it consumes is identical.
For online purchases, I rotate between a few sources. Thriftbooks is my most frequent stop. The prices are low, the selection is large, and their shipping is free once you hit a modest threshold. The downsides: their condition ratings are generous. "Good" on Thriftbooks often means what a reasonable person would call "fair." I've received books described as "good" that had water stains, detached covers, or significant highlighting throughout. You learn to calibrate your expectations. If I want something in genuinely good condition, I look at their "very good" or "like new" listings and mentally downgrade by one level.
AbeBooks is better for specific titles, especially older or more obscure ones. It's a network of independent booksellers rather than a single warehouse, so you're dealing with people who usually know their stock. Condition descriptions tend to be more accurate, and many sellers provide actual photographs. The prices are higher than Thriftbooks on average, and shipping is per-seller, which adds up if you're ordering from multiple shops. I use AbeBooks when I'm looking for something specific that I can't find elsewhere, or when condition matters — say, a reference book I'll use frequently and want to hold up over time.
BetterWorldBooks is another option I use occasionally. Their prices are competitive and they donate a portion of proceeds to literacy programs, which is a nice secondary benefit. The selection is more limited than the other two, but for common titles it's fine.
Library sales remain the best value, though. My town library does a big sale twice a year, and a few neighboring towns do the same. The prices are absurd — fifty cents for a paperback, a dollar for a hardcover, fill-a-bag deals on the last day. The selection is unpredictable, which is part of the appeal. I've found things at library sales that I didn't know I wanted until I saw them on the table. An out-of-print manual on cartographic techniques. A first edition of a nature writing collection I'd been idly curious about. A spiral-bound local history of a town I'd never heard of but found genuinely interesting. None of these were books I would have searched for online. They found me, in the way that only physical browsing allows.
The condition problem deserves a bit more discussion. There's no universal standard for what "good," "very good," or "acceptable" means in the used book market. Each platform and each seller has their own interpretation. I've received books listed as "acceptable" that were in better shape than books listed as "very good" from a different seller. The only reliable approach I've found is to look for sellers who write detailed descriptions rather than just selecting a condition grade from a dropdown menu. "Light shelf wear, tight binding, clean pages, no markings" tells me far more than "very good condition."
My reading tends toward nonfiction — technical manuals, reference books, regional history, and the occasional essay collection. These are categories where used books shine, because many of the titles I want are out of print and were never big sellers to begin with. A slim 1990s guide to archival storage standards. A handbook on document imaging that was superseded by a later edition. A county-level geological survey from the 1970s. These things exist in the used market because someone's library was donated or an office was cleaned out. They don't exist in the new market at all.
The shelf space problem is real, though. I live in a modestly sized place and I own more books than comfortably fit in it. I've added shelving twice in the past few years and both times thought "this should be enough for a while." It was not enough for a while. I've started being more disciplined about cycling books out — if I've read something and don't expect to reference it again, I bring it to the library donation bin. But the inflow still exceeds the outflow most months. This is a character flaw I've accepted rather than resolved.
There's a particular joy in finding the exact book you've been looking for, at a good price, in decent condition. It's a small victory. You add it to your cart, or you pick it up from the sale table, and there's a quiet satisfaction that I think comes from the hunt as much as from the acquisition. The book was out there somewhere, in a warehouse or on someone's shelf or in a donation pile, and now it's coming to you. The transaction feels more personal than buying something new, even when it's completely impersonal.
I should probably buy fewer books. But then I'd have to find another hobby that's this inexpensive and this quiet, and I haven't come across one yet.
— Kevin Vadala