New books are pricey. Thrift stores and garage sales offer used books at good prices, but with a very limited selection. The library might have the book you want, but sometimes you want to own a book, not borrow it. That’s why there’s AbeBooks.com. They sell used books, and cheap.

It started as Advanced Book Exchange, but friends called it Abe and the name stuck. AbeBooks is a website connecting thousands of independent booksellers across the world. Your books are mailed from the store that’s selling that book, not from a central warehouse, so buying from Abe is actually supporting independent booksellers. They’re even local booksellers, just probably not local for you.

In clicking around to write this up, though, I’m saddened to learn that Abe has been a subsidiary of Amazon since 2008. Sigh. In the long run, we’re all going to be subsidiaries of Amazon.

If you want to buy a copy of a particular book, AbeBooks will almost always know which store has it in stock, used, with a fair assessment of its condition, and at a reasonable price. Just glancing at my shelf, I see The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins, Roadside Picnic by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky, When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead, and several novels by B Traven and Phillip K Dick — all purchased from AbeBooks for $5 or less, including shipping. That’s the maximum I’m willing to pay for a book, and with Abe I’ve never broken that rule.

6/24/2020