Monday, September 29, 2014

Goodwill - my favorite used book store

My local Goodwill has been a source of some great book finds over the years. I've come to think of it as a good quality used book store rather then a place where James Patterson, Stephen King, and Dean Koontz novels wind up. I've found signed books and out of print books. Books by Jess Walter, Joyce Carol Oates, Ken Bruen, Duane Swierczynski, Terrill Lankford, Boston Teran, and many others.

One trend I've been able to capitalize on is paperbacks. Clearly my town is filled with guys (presumably) with large pulp, western, men's adventure, and Gold Medal collections which pass through the store a couple of times a year. This has happened so many times that I started to wonder why. One possibility is that it is a town in a rural farming county with older men whose paperback collections from 40+ years ago don't interest their kids and grand kids (those who might be cleaning out a house, attic, or garage) not interested in what is int he boxes or on the shelves.  Another possibility is that my town is more of a book town then the lack of book stores may indicate (One BAM at the mall, one used store). This could be the case because one of the main Random House warehouses and offices is here in town, employing a large number of people with access to different company functions (major authors have passed through town for some of them).

Below the jump are some of the best of my book loot (lots of pics)




A pair of M(a)cDonalds - A beautiful HC edition of Fletch and John D's sci-fi books

Who in the hell finds a McCoy at Goodwill. Plus a HC, 1st edition of Eddie Coyle!

1st edition HC of Lynn Kostoff's debut novel

A McBain novel that, at the time, I had never heard of.

Some Gene Autry books (I have a couple of others)

Black Lizard antho was a great score and Wilson's books aren't your typical Goodwill fare


A signed Wambaugh

A signed World War Z
Long oop and worth far more then the two bucks I paid for it

Great large, HC, non-fiction titles.



All of these Hamiltons

All of these Dan J Marlowes

Great edition of a great book

This is the first book of The Butcher series. Hard to find these days.


All off these MacDonalds

Rare novelizations (that are actually good books too)

Mark Smith books are always hard to find so these were a great score. Death of the Detective is going to be reissued soon from Brash Books

These great old Kerouac paperbacks

Old pulps that I had never heard of but just had to buy anyway

Adult pulps

The first five Man from U.N.C.L.E tie in novels

This great edition of Traven's novel
Another large, HC non-fiction book. Lots of great pictures in this one.

These Gold Medals
A slim volume of poetry written about WWI from 1919. Pretty rare and not readily available these days.
These Saint novels
More large, HC, no-fiction books.
That isn't even all of them. I found a Homicide signed by David Simon and a signed Ellroy a couple of years ago. Plus a lot more paperbacks. I stop in my Goodwill at least once a week (part of the reason I'm able to jump on good deals when I see them. What are the best used book store, thrift store book finds you've had?

2 comments:

Kristi said...

I love this post!
I'm a huge thrifter. You have some great scores!

Steve Weddle said...

signed 1st ed electric koolaid from tom wolfe, finding the signed ones are cool
that wwz signed is super nice