Bibliophile Trying to Donate English Books in Germany

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There are often Charity shops attached to Anglican & English speaking churches. It might be worth seeing where your nearest one is and to see if they have a charity shop attached to it. If they don't they most than likely will have some kind of fair and will have stalls that sell English books.

You might also wish to check out secondhand bookshops and see if they have an English section if not maybe you could ask them to sell some for you? Of course, you could place add somewhere and sell the more valuable ones.

Sadly, in the Internet age used books have lost their value. You won’t be able to sell them (except maybe a few rare and exceptional volumes) for a price worth your effort. There are online merchants who give you an instant quote for most books you key in, so you can try a few.
I think donating them to charity shops is a good idea. You could also ask a public library near you if they are interested. For books suitable for kids and youth, schools might be good takers, as school libraries often lack English books and have no budget to buy them.

Thanks for the two suggestions! Much appreciated and I will follow up.

Me! Give them to me!
I'm kidding, on Facebook there are some groups for selling and exchange of books, look for "Bücher Flohmarkt" or "Bücher Kauf / Verkauf"
Or you can give some to me 😁

Mandiefailla happy to share them with you if I can figure out a way to get them to you. What kind of books are you looking for?

I like fantasy and philosophy the most, but I'll read everything.

Mandiefailla is correct that online one can find groups that buy/sell/exchange books. But good luck with that because as Beppie mentioned, my experience is that the price one gets for them hardly covers the shipping cost, even when sold in bulk. It's funny because everyone learns English in school and there are Germans who like to read English. And when one sees that it often cost 20 - 30 Euros for an English paperback in a book store then one would expect there to be a better market.

There are flea markets for example but unless one is making a business of it, who has the storage space and wants to take the trouble? I had a few hundred books a few years back, top authors and titles at that. I made a list and hung it up at the University in Stuttgart asking just a few Euro/book and got zero response. And there are 30,000 students in Stuttgart including many foreigners who know better English than German. In the end, I mostly give books away to English speaking friends myself. Yet even used German books don’t bring much. A book store in my neighborhood has some bins with used books, with the occasional English one, that they sell for 1 Euro.

There used to be a retired American guy in the Stuttgart area that had a small used book shop. He sold books for 1 or 2 Euros or traded 2 for 1. For him it was a hobby and he probably barely covered the rent although it was hardly more than a garage. Unfortunately, he died and that was the end of that. I know he used to donate a lot of books to an NPO that sent them to Africa so that the kids would have learning material. But I have no idea which organization that might be.

And in the last years people have started to put things out in front of their apartments in boxes to give away. One sees a lot of books being included. Theoretically, some German libraries will take book donations; also in English, as long as they are in very good condition and are modern popular titles.

A real shame you aren’t in the Stuttgart area because I would love to see what you have. If you would have a list of titles and authors then I could offer a trade or at least enough to cover shipping for some books.

TomInStuttgart: thanks for the advice.. I have had a number of great suggestions and I wish Germany were smaller as I would happily distribute my library to Stuttgart and Hamburg from where I've had inquiries.. Fortunately I've discovered there's a guy in town here who will take them ALL off my hands for free -- apparently he's some sort of reseller -- now the only hard choices I must make are which books in my library to divest myself off, and I can guarantee that I am having some sleepless nights about this.. It's hard to downsize but unfortunately this is what one must do when one moves from the great big houses of America to the smaller ones of Europe..

Once again, thanks.

I'm not sure about your city, but in Berlin, pretty much any library in any central district is happy to take them if they're in good condition. Of course, there are a lot of internationals here, so there are plenty of people who want to sign them out.

If you want to sell them, you could try reBuy. They offer a few cents for most books, but some titles can fetch a few Euros.

Are there other English-speakers in your area that you socialize with? If so, you could host a book swap party.