Inspired by this post, where Andy Rooney and Jeff “The Frugal Gormet” Smith are mentioned.
My two authors would be Stephen King and Mary Higgins Clark. Always available at any cheap books venue.
I was just at a library book sale last week! Some others: The Firm (I think travellers were required to buy this at the airport newsstand years ago). Any book in the last 20 years by a comedian: Paul Reiser, Tim Allen, Ellen Degeneres.
Dan Brown, Jeffrey Archer (probably only in the UK), J. K. Rowling.
My friend Michael and I used to joke that we never went into a used bookstore that didn’t have half a dozen copies of Fanny Kemble: A Passionate Victorian, a 1938 bio of the actress. They must have printed *millions *of those things.
A Child Called It is always hanging around at those things, as is a selection of The Road Less Traveled and The Purpose-Driven Life and that ilk.
It stands to reason that, if an author shows up regularly in used book stores and yard sales…
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His/her books sell extremely well.
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His/her books are entertaining but don’t bear repeated readings. They’re enjoyable but NOT so great that people give them to friends or relatives, saying “You HAVE to read this!”
MANY popular middlebrow mystery, romance and horror writers fall into that category. The kinds who write books that are perfect for killing time in an airport or on a plane.
James Patterson, John Grisham, Dean Koontz , Sue Grafton and Mary Higgins Clark are the kinds of authors who come to mind.
Who Moved my Cheese and the Gideon New Testament; John Grisham, Dean Koontz, and possibly Maeve Binchy would be my guess, along with Jayne Krentz. I never see either King or Sue Grafton. Regional variation?
I have never been to a garage sale where there was not a copy of Shogun. Ever.
James Michener.
Everything I Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten
Possibly- but I agree, I don’t see many Stephen King books. Perhaps that’s because the people who like him keep the books to read again, or to share with someone else later.
There’s one other TYPE of book that shows up regularly: the hardcover Nonfiction Best Seller that “Everybody’s Talking About” but which just isn’t that interesting.
Good example? Twenty-five years ago, Allan Bloom’s ***The Closing of the American Mind *** was a huge best seller, but as someone who read that book in its entirety, I can tell you MOST of that book was mighty tedious, and very difficult for anyone who wasn’t a philosophy major to follow.
My guess is, most people who bought that book skimmed through the parts attacking rock music and multiculturalism, but got bored with the long chapters about Heidegger and Wittgenstein, and set the book aside forever.
Every yard sale in the Nineties offered an old copy of ***The Closing of the American Mind *** and/or a copy of one of E.D. Hirsch’s books about what every American ought to know.
And every year, there’s a new non-fiction book destined for a similar fate. Every year, a new controversial, overhyped, widely bought but rarely read nonfiction hardcover book comes out that’s going to be a yard sale classic.
Lewis Grizzard. Oh, and Dave Barry! Tons of Dave Barry’s books. Tons.
I read somewhere that this book, which was an unreadable book about how Americans do not or cannot read, was on the best seller list. Go figure.
Was in a thrift store yesterday- a small one- and they had books by Reiser and Tim Allen. No Ellen Degeneres but they did have Jeff Foxworthy and Bill Cosby.
Assorted diet books (most of them with uncreased spines), How to Make a Fortune in ____ books (sometimes with accompanying audio cassettes), *Left Behind *series books, Da Vinci Code, romance novels (the Barbara Cartland type- thin with white covers and bad art), Grisham (mentioned) and Danielle Steel.
In Alabama you always find VHS copies of the 1979 movie Jesus. There’s a reason: in the 1990s a religious nut who lived in a run down house in north Alabama but who had somehow accumulated a fortune of a couple of million dollars spent his entire wad buying the rights to this movie and mailing a VHS copy to every household in Alabama! Consequently they’re always turning up at yard sales and thrift stores and library sales.
I used to see lots of 1940s/1950s books by Frances Parkinson Keyes but they seem to have been weeded out over the years. Apparently she was a bestselling author whose works people bought just to donate to thrift stores. Likewise every thriftstore that sells records will have records by Bobby Sherman and or Bobby Goldsboro.
Thrift stores around here always seem to have multiple copies of Lee Iacocca’s autobiography, as well as tons of outdated editions of various Norton literature anthologies (although the latter may be a college-town thing).
Not necessarily.
There are certainly authors that fit your scenario. Almost every person who walks into my bookstore with a bag or box of used books to sell has some James Patterson and John Grisham in it, for example. That’s okay, though, because they sell fairly quickly.
There are a lot of books that you always see at used book stores, library sales, and garage sales because:
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They sold (note past tense) very well and a lot were printed
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Nobody buys them anymore, so they sit unsold.
I have a bunch of Stephen King and Louis L’Amour books in my store, but they’re not the same ones that were here a few months ago; they circulate.
I also have copies of books that have been sitting here for ten years since I bought the store (Lawrence Sanders comes to mind).
In related news, what the hell is up with that Herb Alpert record with the naked lady on it? Is it a federal law that all used record stores must have a copy?
Norman Schwarzkopf’s autobiography also pops up a lot in thrift stores .
I actually worked in a thrift store for ~ 3 years in the early 1990s and was responsible for maintaining the non-clothing stuff.
A coworker and I were fascinated by the ubiquity of Barbara Cartland in the donations of romance novels, and we began maintaining a full 8-foot run of her paperbacks in the book section. In chronological order. No other authors allowed. With big frames holding giant portraits of Ms. Cartland. When we straightened each night, we carefully fixed the Cartlad shelves.
Convinced the store manager to have special Cartland sales days, where her novels were discounted, and shoppers got a discount overall if they bought one of her books. Have no idea about her talent or popularity, but if you thrifted romance novels in my area in the 1990s, you probably ran into my Cartland Shrine.
It seems the ones I see most often are Tom Clancy, John Grisham, Dan Brown, Mary Higgins Clark, and Sue Grafton. Oh, and Readers’ Digest Condensed Books, too-- I’ve never seen a volume of those anywhere but at a used-book sale, and I’ve never seen a used-book sale without them.
I see Sue Grafton at the library bookshop all the time; likewise, Robert B. Parker. I haven’t bought a new book of his in about ten years, as the library bookshop’s copies are always in very good condition.