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Flea markets and used bookstores
Let’s be honest, Christmas shopping has already begun, or at least the tremors of it are creeping up through the ground. If I have any sensible gift suggestions for the average Everyman, it’d be to visit two places: the flea market and the used bookstore. I’m not talking about the antique flea market, the plush, iconic, gilt-edged, white-shoe flea market. I’m talking about the one where you can find unopened VHS tapes, used clothing, and fresh vegetables sold out of the back of pickups. Those kinds of flea markets yield the most interesting gifts, and if the recipient looks at you a little askance, all you have to do is say, “Hey, nobody else is going to get a 1978 battery-operated ashtray for Christmas.”
Also, the used bookstore. Used books carry the pretense of having already been read by people older and wiser than you, and if you stumble on an old hardback of some Pulitzer prize-winning novel, awesome. Its pages are falling out, but the recipient will be happy, and the gift will have the weight of history behind it. Theodore Dalrymple hints at this sense in this essay on the used bookshop, referring to George Orwell’s similar essay, “Bookshop Memories.”
Second-hand bookshops the world over still tend to be inadequately heated places, Orwell says because the owners fear condensation in the windows, but also because profits are small and heating bills would be large. There is a peculiar chill, quite unlike any other, to be experienced between the stacks of second-hand bookshops.
We’ve all heard about the decline of the used bookstore and what it means for the decline of Western Civilization. Used bookstores are great, but cheap used books on Amazon and its kin are just as nice, and usually cheaper. But still, try it out. Get your gifts at the flea market and the used bookshop. Your shopping will be far more interesting - and more fun, and more affordable.
back to top19 Comments to “Flea markets and used bookstores”
Some of the most memorable gifts are from the “big store”, which is what my friend called the dump. He used to own a garbage hauling business. It was from a used car that he got the hubcaps for my daughter’s grad gift. We still have the metal ‘50′, taken from another old vehicle, and put on a ribbon for my husband’s 50th birthday. Some great memories there.
I gave my son-in-law an old fishing manual for a wedding gift. He would appreciate it. Some do and some don’t. I love the used bookstores, even though my sinuses suffer.
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I started doing this when I realized I was shopping at the same places the people I was buying for shop. Anything in there they wanted they would have already bought. My Mom loves earrings and I have found some really uniques ones at the flea market.
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No flea markets or used bookstores here in town, unfortunately. And driving an hour to get to a city with a used bookstore wastes as much money as it saves. Even though I just love to browse in used bookstores.
Fortunately we do have a Goodwill store, and I do occasionally find worthwhile gifts there. It’s a popular place, so even going there once or twice a month I probably only see a fraction of what gets sold there. But it’s fun to look - including at the bookshelves, few as they are.
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Aren’t flea markets where thieves sell their stolen goods thay can’t move on Ebay adn through their normal fences?
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I picked up a great complete tea set at Goodwill for my 6yodd’s Christmas present … 4 cups, fancy server, sugar bowl and cream pitcher … for less than $10 recently. Yippee! And at that price, if it gets broken, no worries.
Same store, different trip: A fancy dressed up china doll for 10yodd’s doll collection for less than $5 (all dolls were half off that day).
I love shopping this way. And yes, I keep my eye out for our kids’ nice books (they get one on Christmas and one on their birthdays each year) at used book stores. I won’t buy one that has another child’s name in it, but it’s not hard to hold out for mark-free ones.
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One of the most irritating statements I make (creating paroxysms of “I’m not rich!” defensiveness) is to point out the general conservative Christian affection for the idea of free enterprise and the general conservative Christian effection for the practice of simple, unpretentious living). Wear whatever shoe fits you.
Our economy is now addicted to Christmas shopping as a way to get a fix for many businesses to survive. Now that we are entering the “Greater Depression” (though no one dares say its name–it’s only a “deep recession” with no connection to the last eight years of Bush administration and mostly Republican Congress and all caused by the “leftists” and the “socialists”, more than ever our economy needs a fix of buy, buy, buy for Christmas.
Is it unpatriotic not to buy, buy, buy this Christmas?
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My Virginia-based parents visit my family in Iowa once a year, and whenever they travel my dad stops at used-bookstores along the way, hawking Northern books from the South that he bought cheap in the South to re-sell for much higher prices to Northerners.
In turn. he buys Southern-based books in the Northern states for cheap prices that he then re-sells for much higher prices in the South.
In the end, my parents earn enough money during their visits to us to pay for hotels, fuel, meals and have extra cash from their voyage in between.
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RN: Most of us evangelical parents buy gifts for our children during Christmas not to be patriotic, but to bless our children (mirroring, in a small way, the gift God gave us of His son).
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The best site for used and rare books on the web. They’ve been at it a long time and, at least until they were acquired by Amazon this year, had the most ethical list of sellers.
http://www.abebooks.com
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It’s sort of like newspapers on the web, though. So much instantly available information results in loss of the joy and pure randomness of accidental discovery.
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Used bookstore? How much are those going for?
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As much as Americans will pay, Lumpy, no thanks to your socialist President-elect.
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He’s yours too, pumpkin.
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A wise friend of mine shops yard sales and thrift stores throughout the year. She purchases new and unused items whenever she can find them and stores these items until a need for a gift arises.
When a birthday or other occasion comes along, all she has to do is go look through her storage bin and choose an appropriate gift.
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As long as their are thrift stores, there will be used books to be had. I think I have enough used books to start my own store, so even all the bookstores go out of business, I promise I will start one.
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I now live in the wilderness far from a decent used book shop. And my heart was broken when I found that my favorite Philadelphia shop, The Book Trader on 5th and South, had closed.
You may note all of the former library books being sold. Libraries are culling their old books. Get them while you can.
All legitimate used book stores have a cat. Most have a man at the cash register with a long beard.
On the bright side, now I can actually find multiple copies of the book I want online. But I do miss browsing. The big chains do not have much selection, at least in history beyond the Civil War, WWII, and Vietnam.
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Arcadia -
Something we agree on! Wow. I had better shut up or I will ruin the moment (where have I heard that before?)
I use abebooks all the time.
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A friend of mine was always one of the first at the libraries book sales, which were twice a year here. He had enough bought, so that when he died his widow was able to go on selling them online for some extra income. They also gave away and donated several.
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I would actually recommend http://www.bookfinder.com, since it links to abebooks as well as other used booksellers.
We have Half Price Books here in Louisville, and it’s pretty good. It appears to be at least a small chain, but I’m not sure what other cities it is in.
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