What to do with Books once you have finished them?

 

 

So what should you do with books once they are read? Do you keep them? Throw them? Sell them? (Referring to paperbacks not E-books of course) Personally no matter if I hated the book I have a ridiculously hard time letting them go, which doesn’t really bode well for you know space to fill up with books that I have really enjoyed. It also has resulted in me having a multitude of books that I haven’t even touched just because they tend to get hidden behind others, so what can you do with books once you’ve finished with them?

#1

Well I guess the first most obvious choice would be to keep them, build up your collection and have your very own personal library. This is something I do hope to have one day, just a room dedicated to books and of course an awesome reading nook to hide away in! This is not always practical though especially if you know your just never gonna read a certain book again.

#2

Donate or sell, I’m not sure where you are but there are a few charity shops around my area that will gladly take used books, they also tend to sell books at a quite a cheap rate too so it’s easy to pick up a few more for your collection while your there. Selling is another option, although the books to tend to loose a fair amount of their value, you can always use any money you get back to buy more books!

#3

Start you own book swap/community library. Now something that was started by my lovely community lately was our own very community library, now this is basically a little wooden bookshelf, which is of course enclosed against weather which is located in between a number of small shops. Anyone can go and get a book from the library, with the expectation that you will swap one for others to read. This leads to a ever changing rotation of books that everyone has access too! Starting your own may be hard but if you know a group of bookworms in your area this may be a great idea to get together and swap a few books. There is of course people who leave there books in a number of random places so someone is able to find and gain a new book.

#4

Re-purpose them. There are so many arts and crafts that way more creative people than me have come up with, all of which turn you old read book into something new and exciting! These range from origami to clutch handbags to making your own paper. There are so many options! Now I am more than a little tempted to have a go at some of these at a later date but if anyone has done any let me know I would love to know how they went.

#5

Re-gift them. Okay you probably can’t pass it off as a brand new book you have gone out and bought, but they could be gifted just as a ‘I was thinking of you’ present, or a ‘you need to read this book so I can talk about it with someone’ present. Maybe even a sorry I did something silly present. The possibilities are endless and you may end up with someone who either loves or hates the book as much as you. At the very least if they read it you will have something to discuss!

What do you do with books after you have finished them? Let me know!