Cookery books and other books - are you keeping them ?

Anglo Doorstep will collect books and sell them for charity. As for keeping books, I have downsided literally 1000s including 300 cookery books, text books from uni, all the books I bought for the GC to read here and 6 bookcases of novels.

When it became very necessary to get rid of lots of books I was ruthless and in fact it came down to one question. Could I live without this book? If it was NO then it stayed and carried on being cherished. Sentimentality ruled!

BlueBelle

Just PLEASE dont take them to your nearest charity shops We cannot sell them at 50p each I offered a load of non fiction including cookery books to the local library, the librarian said thanks but no thanks they can’t even give them away

I volunteer for a charity book shop and all sorts of books do sell, including cookery books! So please DO donate your unwanted books to charity! It is a great way of recycling them.
Also if anyone wants to check if their books are valuable, Abebooks is a good site to look at (as is eBay).

Thank you Authoress i will read up more about it. The article I read this week was in an art magazine passed on to me by a friend. I expect by now the renovations have been completed.
A place to see one day on my To Do and See list.

I used to have hundreds of cookery books, and enjoyed flicking through them like magazines.

When we got the kitchen redone a couple of years ago I got rid of most of them. It was a wrench, but I haven't missed them.

I don't know why they've dropped from fashion - about ten years ago people like Nigella and Jamie Oliver brought out new ones every Christmas (I have all the Ottolenghi ones) so it surprises me that they are getting pulped now. I know you can look up recipes, but you can't flick through websites and look at the pictures like you can through a book.

@HelterSkelter1 the commune is near Hadleigh in Suffolk, near me 🙂

Since the food recycling scheme came in here a few weeks ago, the cardboard bin will now take books, presumably for pulping.

I cannot bear to get rid of a book which is why I have 5,000++. I have co me across some fascinating titles but then the books turned out to be stupefyingly dull. "The Closet of Sir Kenelm Digby Bt", sounded promising but only if you were interested in viper's wine for the complexion!!!

Cookbooks: Delia is a basics bible; there are only ever two or three recipies per book, which I go back to time and time again (remember the monthly cordon bleu magazines?) but I do browse for inspiration.

Gardening: came across either parents or grandparents books: A Guide to Pruning (hardback of course!) and "Wartime Gardening" - well we might need that shortly!!

Yes NannyDot I m very aware of the weekly rag collections but for a large walk in cupboard FULL of bags of ‘rags’ plus about 100 books plus about a dozen trays of bric a brac we get £30+ and that’s a weekly amount we have to ditch
Other charity shop workers I m sure will tell you the same story
I scan the books for an hour before the shop opens to find any for eBay or world of books We do try but it’s tiny in comparison with what comes in

sandye

I got rid of over 100 cookbooks when I moved (love to look at cook books) and just ended up buying more in the new house. got rid again when moved again and same thing. Now moving again, they are coming with me.

I could relate to that!

I got rid of all mine, it was a real wrench as some had lovely pics or illustrations, BUT they were taking up valuable space and when we had a house move I decided it was time for them to go.My Granddaughter is a keen baker and I was hoping she would want them but of course they get recipes online and also in newer cookery books that come out.
I just kept one or two, one with recipes local to my area and a beloved old torn paper 'BERO' book !!

I recently gave travel and phrase books to our Oxfam bookshop. It was hard to part with them, but unlikely to need them. ( didn’t give them all away of course - maybe next time )

Today I noticed a "book bank" in Sainsburys car park next to a clothes bank. Should think the books get damaged as they are thrown in so presumably they are not sold on as books.

I got rid of over 100 cookbooks when I moved (love to look at cook books) and just ended up buying more in the new house. got rid again when moved again and same thing. Now moving again, they are coming with me.

Most of my books are non fiction and relate to my special interests and contain maps, diagrams, photos and are simply difficult to use online.I did download a couple but it was a disaster, not being able to flip between text ans maps etc. Also many are so old they do not exist online. The two texts for my current resarch were published in 1940 and 1950. I often have both open on my desk at different but textually linked pages.

Most were bought second-hand through specialist booksellers

Talking of recipes.

I know we can find anything on line, but sometimes, it’s just easier to turn and look at a page in a book.

Same with instruction manuals. My DS laughed at me yesterday when I said something about looking it up in the car’s instruction book- ‘No one uses those anymore Mum!’

Well, we do!

(Whether we can follow it is another matter!)

I think I shall be like an Egyptian Pharoah snd have all my sentimental posessions tucked in with me when I go!!

Our local charity shop doesn't take cookery books.

Books somehow seem to have more sentimental value than actual monetary value. It's so difficult to part with them. I still regret sending some old children's books of my father's to the Oxfam Shop years ago.

I have no cookery books. Just a few recipes in a folder.
Reading books are ‘read and go’.

Me too. I've loads of old cookery books, real favourites like Delia Smith etc. And several lovely encyclopaedias which I used to spend hours researching various things. I'm so fond of them and yet they just sit here now gathering dust.
I think I am going to have to get tough.......

I got rid of many to charity shops as there were maybe just one or two recipes in a book that I used. I bought a very nice recipe folder/book and I put all my old fave tried and tested recipes in there plus some pullouts from magazines that I plan to try.

It is so easy now to just find a recipe online. Having said all that I could not resist a Mary Berry cookery book recently with wonderful photos. 🤣

I was,just thinking nanna8 it was time I did the same. Some books I haven’t looked at for ages and could really go if I can bear to part. Others are like friends especially my go to Good Housekeeping which is over 50 years old and falling apart but won’t be going until I do! I too use a lot of online recipes including U tube. I rather like Rick, the Backyard Chef.

Some old books are very valuable. At least that's what I tell myself.
But you people have the right idea.
Must start the clear out.

I keep all books. Need to buy another bookcase soon .

I have culled my cookery books down to those that have sentimental memories or special recipes, but what I still haven't got round to is sorting out all my old gardening books!

So much information is now available online. I subscribe to Alan Titchmarsh on Facebook and also the Gardeners' World website. My gardening books are very old-fashioned and were written for a very different type of gardener, it seems.

It's a job for a dull winter's day, I think! But what to do with them? I feel awful if I ever have to take books to the local recycling centre...

PS I am using unwanted books to support some planks of wood in a bedroom alcove to make some, "temporary" but have lasted many years, shelves.