Cookery books and other books - are you keeping them ?

GrannySomerset

The one cookery book I won’t ever part with belonged to my late MiL and contains many wartime recipes written in very young DH’s careful printing and, later, neat joined up writing. When our local history society did a wartime exhibition I made the fruit cake and collected together a week’s rations for a family of four - the reaction and interest was surprising.

But I too have too many cookery books and now don’t really need any of them. Sad.

I won’t part with my Mum’s handwritten cookery books from when she was studying cookery at college in the 1930s.

She kept them all those years and her handwriting was beautiful. One of her grandson’s (not mine) borrowed them once as he was considering going into catering but they came back a bit dog eared and stained with coffee cup rings. She was sad but didn’t say anything.

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

Here here. People don’t realise it costs us money to dispose of them through our skip which the council charges for.

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 can't resist the proliferation of dirt cheap cookery books in charity shops. There's nothing to beat the lazy pleasure of food porn, leafing through the beautifully illustrated dishes I'm never going to bother making.
No sweat, no exotic techniques and no mess after.

Just the other day I extracted 2 recipes - the only ones I ever use - from an early 70s cookery book that was falling apart (front hardback part long gone!) put them in my recipe folder and binned the rest.

Should do the same with others that I never, or hardly, use.

The one cookery book I won’t ever part with belonged to my late MiL and contains many wartime recipes written in very young DH’s careful printing and, later, neat joined up writing. When our local history society did a wartime exhibition I made the fruit cake and collected together a week’s rations for a family of four - the reaction and interest was surprising.

But I too have too many cookery books and now don’t really need any of them. Sad.

I got rid of a lot of books when decluttering, including my Marguerite Patten cookery books. Nobody uses them anymore. I gave them to a local charity shop and am not sure if they just binned them, would imagine so.

Anglo Doorstep Collection take away up to 10 bags or boxes of books at a time.
We are in the process of downsizing and have found them invaluable for lots of different items and very convenient.

Try the 'we buy books' website.

I recently 'culled' a lot of books and it included some cookery books- i had not really bothered with them tbh, but ive kept about a half dozen just in case.Yes i'd get rid of what you really wont need,but try sell instead of donate,encyclopeadias etc might be worth a few bob on the second- hand book sites, but if not,then donate them.But always check their worth first for books,as you never know.

I tidy and look after our local telephone 'library' box. I have to say that cookery, autobiographies and 50 shades of grey (yes there are so many copies about) books are the bain of my life. Unfortunately none of the charity shops want them and they can't be recycled (glue used for binding). What does make me smile / grimace are the political/military minded books some of which can be very odd!!! can't think who puts those in.

I probably wouldn't keep encyclopedias, so much of the knowledge is outdated within a couple of years & the current consensus is available on the net.
I won't be getting rid of my cookery books any time soon though, there are tried & trusted recipes in there that might take me a while to fiond online, notes written in adapting to different quantities or ingredients, & most importantly I prefer working from a cookery book rather than a laptop (although I do both).

If you have any really good looking old books do get them valued before giving them away. My mother had a wonderful set of leather bound libretti of Wagner's Ring Cycle. A limited edition, hand made paper and beautiful Arthur Rackham illustrations. She always told me that no one would want them because they were written in Flemish. After she died I showed them to an auctioneer and told him I knew they were worthless. He looked at me as if I was insane and said "No one's going to buy them to read! They will want the pictures!" They sold for £450 which would have amazed my mother.

Grantanow

I put books I don't need in the paper recycling box for collection.

How sad 😔

Sell them on Vinted 🙂

Grantanow

I put books I don't need in the paper recycling box for collection.

Not permitted in our paper recycling collection.

Tells you to black bin or charity shop them.

I put books I don't need in the paper recycling box for collection.

I filled up my grannie trolley and gave a stack to a guy who is crazy about baking.
Now I'm looking at the other cookery books which I don't open from one year to the next .

I love my cookery books but rarely use more than i or two recipes from each book.

I too rip out favourue recipes and put them in plastic folders but then I can't bear to throw the rest of the book away.

I get lots of recipes on line now but still print them off oif at all possible.

One of my grandchildren is a real bookworm. She buys them new, even though I urge her to look in the Op shops. She is at uni studying science but reads more English lit types of books. Have to say she is the only one out of all of them.
I love browsing secondhand bookshops and when we travel into country towns I head there first! Wonderful places and still quite popular here.

No Maybe I don’t think many children of today will be ‘book people’ like our generation I have seven adult grandkids four have been to University and all seven have very good jobs. None are book readers, although they all had many books as children
I doubt any of them own or buy books, everything is done online.

I searched for decades for a book from my childhood that my mum had either thrown or given away. I eventually found a copy on eBay. It was in such a state it could easily have been thrown away, no one would have thought that it could mean so much to anyone. Pre internet I found another book via a book search and when I told the people who ran it how emotional I felt when I received it they said so many people said the same. Will children in the future have the same attachment to books?

I have many cookbooks, but the ones I am addicted to are Good Housekeeping which I first had a copy of in the 70s. I often sit with one or two beside me and read the many recipes I had intended to make. I don’t want to part with them while I still enjoy them. The internet is great, but the choice is too vast.

However, after reading some posts I might dispose of The World of the Children, or the Children’s Encyclopaedia which are very un-pc today.

ufix1

Book dilemma! First of all I went through the books then photocopied any recipe I used a lot as invariably a large book only had a couple Of favorites, then I gave them to charity. Recently I have bought x2 from a charity shop which I love in The Pinch of Nom series. Re non cookery books, I am a voracious reader so any I had with tiny print or smelled musty went. I have a wonderful library or buy secondhand. Well done for identifying that you have too many.

I bought 2 of the PON books when they came out but they are so ingredient heavy! Huge lists that do my head in. I have now taken them to the chazzers.

Elegran I have never had a book on my bookshelf, attic nor cellar on how to make a Molotv cocktail. I doubt in the scenario you paint would the library be open or staffed. Lack of petrol to get there, no trains nor buses running. No telephones, no electricity so the address or tel number of someone in authority would be of no use. They would without doubt be bundled away into a safe haven anyway.

So apart from the weighty ones being of use to throw, my collection of cookery, non fiction and fiction books would not serve me well. I could burn them to keep warm and boil a pot of tea if I had not run out of water because our supplies were scuppered.

On that note I shall finish my tea and wish you all good night.

M0nica I am very wary of the current trend toward getting rid of the printed or handwritten originals of everything and relying on digital online versions.

Photographs are another example. There can be details on or with a photograph which are not included in a digital scan, like a note written on the back, of who is in it and where, when, and why it was taken, or the name and address of the photographer printed on the mount. AI can produce a believable instant digital image which tells lie about what and why and when, and how and where and who, but it is harder to fake a genuine photographic print with real handwriting on the back.