What to do with old books: from €0.25 to 4 cents per kilo

What to do with old books that nobody wants

What do you do with a bookshelf full of books you will never open again? It is the question for anyone who has inherited a relative's library or has a pile of mandatory school novels they never liked. The uncomfortable answer, which almost no one wants to hear, is that for many of those volumes—school textbooks, outdated encyclopedias, cheap editions falling apart—the market pays a pittance. From there, a range of options begins, from the recycling bin to a table lamp.

How much you get for an old book

The figures from those who have tried to get rid of large lots are not encouraging. The most common valuation is around €0.25 per copy, small change that becomes ridiculous when the volume is weighed instead of counted. A junk dealer paid between 3 and 4 cents per kilo: for a thousand kilos of paper, about 30 euros, just enough for a week's worth of coffee. Another case: 800 books turned into 150 euros after discarding the unsalvageable ones, an average of 19 cents per unit. And that only counts the material that still had a market.

When a second-hand shop is involved, the suspicion is the same: they either won't buy them at all, or the price is symbolic. A pittance, at most.

Donating to the library: why it no longer works

Donating seems like the noble route, yet it hits a wall. Public libraries are saturated, and accepting a hundred donated books means less space for new commercial releases. In this sense, the library circuit works like any other business: priority is given to bestselling authors and books that are bought and placed on visible shelves, even if no one checks them out. Free books are surplus when there is no room.

Many libraries have found a middle ground: a box or a discard corner at the entrance where passers-by can take what they want. It is the same principle as the rain-protected street bookshelves that work in Germany, where many have walked away with a good book without paying a cent. The difference is the model: free exchange versus a cataloged collection.

The real problem isn't the book, it's what's behind it

Hardly anyone gets stuck because of the literary value of what they hold. The brake is emotional. The copies that survive purges are usually inherited from relatives who are no longer here, and there you find a cookbook a mother bought, a volume no one will ever open but which functions as a memory object. Getting rid of that isn't throwing away paper; it's throwing away a piece of someone.

The pattern repeats in any family home being cleared: photos, memories, and books competing for the last drawer. Attachment grows even if they are never looked at again. And to the accumulation, a domestic problem is added: they collect dust and, with it, silverfish that colonize the pages.

What to do if nobody wants them: from lamps to recycling

When the market fails, imagination takes over. People have suggested giving them away in messaging groups, leaving them on subway seats and park benches, offering them on second-hand platforms where the interested party only pays for shipping—at no cost to the seller—or handing them over to flea markets, community associations, senior centers, and shelters. For the DIY enthusiast, the star idea is to turn a pile into a table or ceiling lamp, or to wallpaper a wall with their pages.

When there is no salvation left, there are the sad options. The blue recycling bin for broken copies, or the fireplace. Some joke about using bad novels to start a fire and save on heating. And there is a nuance of selection that shouldn't be lost: an old book is one thing, an antique book is another. No one throws away a history volume or a collection that still interests other enthusiasts; what gets in the way is the cheap school history book that even its publisher doesn't recognize.

Which option actually works

The option that seems to prevail is not heroic: keep what survives the cull on a free shelf for now, gradually getting rid of the rest as space opens up, and leaving the discards at the library's exchange point. Nothing epic.

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In the end, the most popular way to get rid of old books is, unsurprisingly, not to do it. They are looked at, cleaned, stacked in a corner, and a promise is made to decide tomorrow. And so the years pass.