BootsnAll Travel Community

This just occurred to me a couple days ago while I was clothes shopping at a local thrift store:
If you aren't super picky about what you read (e.g. you aren't looking for the latest best sellers or a specific title) then these are great places to pick up reading material for travel.

I was at the main Goodwill store in Toronto, and came out with the Deptford Triology (a favourite of mine by Robertson Davies) the Robber Bride (Margaret Atwood) and another one entitled Backpacking in the 90's, for a grand total of 3$ Canadian.

They had more or less the complete works of Shakespeare (both as individual plays, and as combined volumes), a fair variety of Dickens and Hardy, all kinds of old Stephen King, V.C. Andrews, John LeCarre, Danielle Steele etc.

Basically so long as lots of them have been printed, your odds of finding what you're looking for (or at least something similar) are quite good, and the books are dirt cheap, PLUS you're supporting worth charities.

Maybe most of you had thought of this already, but it was a minor revalation to me, so I thought I'd share

Good to know...I wouldn't have thought to check in a thrift store for reading material. Thanks!

"No one is useless in this world who lightens the burden of it to anyone else." C.D.

"The longest journey starts with a single step." L.T.

Almost all public libraries will have a table or cart filled with books they are trying to get rid of.

You can find some great buys there.

Used book stores. Thjough most of are NOT in the internet. You have to find themthe old fashioned way by going through a phonebook!!

BIG-TARGET>>>>> "...damned Brave, or a complete fool, but bloody Resourceful fellow" Captain 'Buck' Flashman, (father of Harry Flashman) Waterloo 1815

a lot of the bookstores in nyc have $1 or $2 tables, often outside. sometimes after they close (used bookstores, or even thrift stores) people will leave bags of books (donations) outside the store, so take a walk after dark.

I buy a lot of my books (I'd say about 1/3 of them) from thrift stores like Goodwill and Salvation Army. If you live in a particularly literate area, you can find some GREAT stuff for 50 cents. When I lived in California, I shopped almost exclusively at Goodwill (even though I worked at a bookstore!). Back in Michigan, pickings were slim. Here in Texas they are nonexistent.

Weird.

But anyhow, yes, shop at thrift stores! They are AWESOME! Plus, at Goodwill at least, they often employ the mentally handicapped. These are people who, like my sister, need to learn how to have a job, so do your part for those less fortunate and shop there!

Once or twice a year the local library here puts on a big book sale and you pay $1 for the expensive books. Plus they also have a department that you can buy books from year round. And you help fund the notoriously underfunded public libraries.

I worked for an Oxfam shop in England where we sold second hand books and they were very cheap indeed, and all the money supported Oxfam charity projects all over the world, it was a great experience for me be in the little part of this.