Dan Brown tops the list.

Ian Rankin tops their sales chart. And no, I don't really know why I'm posting this.

Ha, the box of books I keep meaning to take to the charity shop does indeed include an unread Da Vinci Code that someone dumped on me, and a couple of Rankins (read and enjoyed).

Not too surprising.

It seems that Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code is to the Oxfam bookshelf what Paul Young's No Parlez is to the cardboard box of LPs.

MsD, pop into the Oxfam at Bloomsbury, where I work sometimes. Splendid shop.

I wish we had Oxfam shops in the US.

Our "charity thrift stores" tend to be much more focussed on used clothing and furniture.

I wish we had these shops in America. They sound cool. Goodwill and Salvation Army are the most prominent second-hand charity stores in the US, but they're mostly for clothes, and they're usually disasters inside--lots of stuff piled in no discernible order, and most of the non-clothes stuff is junk.

Er...weird. I was writing my response and then decided to Google Oxfam just to be sure there weren't some shops here. Didn't see ursus' post before I posted mine.

A Sunday newspaper decided to give Angela's Ashes free one week, so one week a whole shelf where I help out had nothing but the things. To this day, I can't stand Frank McCourt.

We have lots of bric-a-brac Oxfam stores, the traditional format, but an increasing number of books only. Despite a few exceptions, idiots who think books should be 50p because they're for charity, the public seem to love the bookshops.

Many charity shops are crap though. We have one of those "Ramsey's Kitchen Nightmares" shows but with shops and charity shops have featured; the female Ramsey wouldn't have to look very hard to find a shop with no logic to the pricing and lots of shite on display when there was better stuff out the back.

The managers are not paid particularly well, but make a huge difference. Our one is excellent.

I wonder though if we're having an effect on library visits.

I think they are probably having a pretty serious effect on second hand bookshops too. Which is a shame, but although I'd like small businesses to survive, I'd prefer the profits to go to charity.

I volunteer at a Barnardo's bookshop at the moment and do most of my shopping at charity shops. I reckon there are a few categories of books that end up in charity shops in great numbers.

1. Books that are around in such huge numbers that they are inevitably going to end up in charity shops (Dan Brown, J.K.Rowling, Jane Austen, Ian Rankin, Angela's Ashes)

2. Authors who are considered greats, but who are actually very difficult to read (Thomas Hardy and Henry James would be the most obvious ones here, Hardy is basically omnipresent in charity shops)

3. Books that got recommended by (the likes of) Richard and Judy but aren't simply fluff (Jed Rubenfeld's The Interpretation Of Murder is very popular in charity shops, I reckon because lots of people bought it thinking it was a straight forward murder mystery, but were unprepared for the comparative analysis of Freudian and Jungian psychoanalysis)

4. Books that are really bad. For instance Is It Me Or Is Everything Shit. Anyone who thinks that Charlie Brooker has an easy job because he pretty much hits easy targets should try and read this, which has it's heart in the right place, attacks easy targets, and is staggeringly unfunny (I smiled at one Bono joke, that was it).

If I worked for Reader's Digest, I'd be seriously worried - you rarely see them in charity shops anymore and certainly not in the quantities of a decade ago. Maybe it's because the standards have fallen dramatically since they introduced the new, more Americanised, format. National Geographic still seems to be as popular as ever, though.

Goodwill stores in the US are apparently a goldmine for vintage hifi separates. Charity shops over here increasingly seem to have stopped selling electrical goods because they have to have them PAT tested before hand.

Tubby Isaacs wrote:
MsD, pop into the Oxfam at Bloomsbury, where I work sometimes. Splendid shop.
Hmm. I bet you've made a hole in the changing room curtain and have hung an enticing array of vintage blouses close by as bait.

^ joke btw.

Oxfam sell online now ... useful for browsing through their vintage designer wear.

We only sell books, sadly.

Oxfam don't make the most of online for books. A lot of the rarer stuff would get much higher prices online than in shop. But shops need to maximise their income so, there's no incentive to sell online. Maybe a bit of internal accounting could solve that problem. Chippy, are you reading this?

I've been in your shop, btw, you're round the corner from GOSH!

Had to look that up. Great Ormond Street, right?

er no, GOSH the comic shop. My gentleman friend goes there a lot and I sometimes accompany him.

irishreddevil wrote:
If I worked for Reader's Digest, I'd be seriously worried
Yes, you would.