My Mother passed at the beginning of this month, I am trying to pack up everything in her apartment. My mom loved to cook as does my brother. Brother has already been here and took what he wanted. I have 30 to 40 pretty new cookbooks, I rarely cook and dont have room at this time to store them (too much other stuff) My delimma is… should I try to sell them give them away, donate them? I have mentioned them to several friends but no one is like clamoring for them. I have a friend who would probably take them but she is going through something similar and I am already giving her a bunch of stuff. There is a place in town that might buy them for cash but the idea of selling them is making me uncomfortable. I have two weeks to close out the apartment and turn in the keys. I am so tired and frustrated with all of this. And I miss my parents so so much.
I’m sorry for your loss. Clearing out a parent’s things is a really tough process. In a way, it can be a good thing to have a definite time limit on it, so you know you’ll be done in two weeks.
When my mom died, we took the books my brother and I didn’t want to keep to a used bookstore. They only actually bought a small percentage of them, but they accepted the others as a donation when I asked if they would. It made me feel a little better about giving them away, even though it wasn’t a charity, since used bookstores are where book lovers who can’t afford to spend a lot go.
Good luck on the process. There are a lot of us here who have been in your shoes, if that helps at all.
Cookbooks are one category that people buy and hardly use. Even if these cookbooks are in pristine condition, there is not going to be much of a market for them. The exception might be if there were some that were really old (like an old “Joy of Cooking”) or one that was a compendium of food of a certain style. Those would be good to hang onto. But if they’re just regular cookbooks with a variety of recipes, don’t trouble yourself trying to find a good home for them.
Our local library has annual book sales for donated books, plus a continuing sales book cart – all books are $2 for a hardcover, $1 for paperbacks – and all proceeds go to buying new books for the library. Maybe you have something like that locally?
Really? I have one that’s literally falling apart from years of use, and several others that are pulled out periodically. Granted, these days it’s just as easy to pull up a recipe on my tablet, but my books and old hand-written recipes are still pressed into service.
But I do agree that selling them could be an impossible challenge. In a similar situation, I think donation to the library would be my choice.
I hate using my phone or tablet to look at a recipe! Like yours, the cookbooks I use a lot are food-stained and falling apart, and I have a box of recipe cards that look the same. If I try using an electronic device instead, it cramps my style to have to keep it dry and free from food detritus when I’m checking back to see the next step while mixing or chopping something.
People may have their go-to cookbooks, but people also buy a lot of cookbooks like “Springtime Party Recipes” that are filled with gorgeous pictures of people having fun and eating great food. They buy them because they get caught up in the desire to have these parties, but they may never actually crack open the cookbook and make any of the recipes. They’re more like coffee table books rather than cook books.
Like in our house, books like “Joy of Cooking” and “Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking” are falling apart, while a book like “Recipes of the Celebs of Sundance” look as good as new. We have like 2-3 go-to cookbooks and about a dozen others that are hardly ever opened, much less have had a recipe cooked from them.
Now that I think about it, the cookbooks which we use most regularly are basically just text with perhaps some simple images or pictures. They’re more like reference books. The cookbooks filled with full-page, color photos are nice to look at, but we don’t use them much as actual cook books.
One thing I just remembered is that if you have a local Half-Price Books, they may buy these cookbooks, as well as any other books you have. They may sell them in that local store or send them off to the warehouse to be sold through their on-line store. You may not get much for them. Better than nothing.
We put all of our rarely-used cookbooks out on a “free” table on the sidewalk. Most all of them were taken. Selling books like that is hopeless.
Just to update on this, i took two boxes of books to the place that actually buys books and they took most of them and gave me $45.00 for them. I couple of freinds took somebefore and after and I was left with one mystery hardback that I will take on a trip where I plan to do nothing but read and drink adult beverages after dealing with all of this.
I had decided to donate anything left over to our local library system since my mom was a librarian. Only one book was left and once I read it, will probably donate there as well as some from my own collection. The Little Library boxes i see around would be a nice idea as well for more popular fiction.