What Do You Do With Your Old Books?

This post is inspired by my mega spring clean the other week, where I cleared off shelf space and cleared things from my room. I cleared books off of my shelf, books I’d read that I plan to never read again. They weren’t bad books, they are just books I no longer am interested in. I’ve read them and they aren’t the type to reread, you can see a sample of my books pile below, I need to find a new home for them that is not on my bookshelf.

What to do with your old or unwanted books is a dilemma for readers everywhere, you will inevitably end up with some books you no longer want, no matter how much of a book hoarder you may be. My question to you all is what on earth do you do with these books?

I know there are numerous ways to shift my old books, I can swap them in, trade them online for cash, give them to charity, or simply throw them away. All are viable options, and I have investigated trading some of my old university texts in at Amazon for an amazon gift card, but when it comes to your usual everyday kind of reads it is not so easy to make a profit from them.

I have investigated book swapping, that way I get a new book without paying anything more than postage for the book someone is willing to swap with me, but my issue is that I have not found a website which fits what I want. I want a site that I’m likely to get stuff I want to read, otherwise I’ll just be trading in books I don’t want to get books I’ve thought about reading but lacked motivation to because I wasn’t that interested. It seems like a flawed way of getting new books, if I had been interested enough to buy the book I most likely would have already (unless pricing put me off).

I normally end up just giving these books to a local charity shops as this is a very easy option for me to do. There is little effort on my part beyond getting someone to drive me to town (yes, I am 24 years old and have yet to learn to drive a car, do you have a problem with that?) as I normally have a box full of books to donate that I would really rather not lug around on the bus. As a whole it is way more convenient and I am helping others discover new books, much like I do when I go trawling through the shelves at charity shops.

I try and gift friends with any of my unwanted books first. I like to think that I am passing them on to others to enjoy, which is quite similar to how I view giving them to a charity shop.

I don’t know, I’m probably not being the smartest with getting rid of my old books and would love to hear some of your thoughts. I am genuinely interested to hear what you do. Maybe you’re sensible enough to invest in your library and avoid buying books, but for those of you with the same self control as I have when it comes to book buying your advise would be appreciated, and I’m sure there are plenty of others interested too.