Moving on old books (emerging from a house clear out) without making a ‘lifetime’s’ work of it

Depending on where you live (Barter Books in Northumberland for example), you could take them to an 'exchange' bookshop. I did that when I had a massive clear out 6 years ago. I now have a huge 'credit' on an account there so don't have to pay whenever I want the occasional book now.

Sadly, sometimes books like theses have to go to pulp. We took the books that were beyond anything else to the paper pulp bin at our local tip.

Not knowing where you are based, but Pulp2Pencil in Devon uses old books: www.facebook.com/pulp2pencil/

[No website as yet]

An old book is not valuable or worth selling on unless:

it's has the genuine Beatles' signatures on it or similar historical interest.

it is in clean condition or as new

is not a coffee table book

is of topical or antique interest.

A charity shop will be able to sell some books that a secondhand book seller would take to the dump.

PS is particularly rare.

PS is a particularly rare quality specialist book e.g. on some arcane aspect of history or engineering or so forth.

I heard the other day about a firm which takes boxes of books and gives you their value in retur, which varies according to the book. It isn't much but it means they will be sold on (if possible) and someone may get the pleasure of reading them. They even send a courier, so you don't have to take the box to the post office.They have a website - when I can remember their name, I'll post again with it!

I think this is it - www.ziffit.com/en-gb/sell-my-books By entering the ISBN of a book onto the page, you can see how much they will give you for it, and pack up a box with the ones you want to sell.

I use Ziffit, as Elegran says enter the ISBN and it will tell you how much it is worth, add to your basket, and keep going. You have to have £5 in the basket before you can complete the deal (better to do it in small batches). You can then download the label (free) to post to them. Box them and take to a collection point (there is a map showing the nearest one to you)

won't work on old books, quite a few of mine don't have ISBN numbers.
I have been selling on Amazon, but will give this new one a go if I can

Paper is all recycled or can be burnt as fuel, so why not just recycle them.?

When I was clearing my uncle's house he had a library of maths and economics and politic books, most dating to the 1940s. Fortunately I am an economist and I knew that nearly all the maths, economic and political books wer e desperately out of date so I ditched them. Some books, especially history books I kept for myself and I divided the rest between a local charity and the Oxfam bookshop in Oxford.

If you think any may be valuable have a look on Abe books to see what any there are selling for and then look for a specialist bookseller.

I say, use a specialist bookseller because I bought a book from the bargain box outside my local second hand book dealer. It was one volume of a two volume set. I paid a £1, The second volume cost me £30 on Abe Books and now I have both volumes the 2 volume set is worth £90.

Our local charity shop has a table of books every week. We pay £1 per book, read them and often take them back to resell so they continue to make our charity a little money.
Win Win.
But I know what you mean about text books and scruffy novels. It seems wrong to pulp books