If you’re looking to downsize your collection, Hemingway’s is offering cash payments of 25%-35% of our resale price on each item. For instance, if you bring us a book worth $4.00, we would pay between $1.00 and $1.50 depending on its condition and resale demand. So for a $4.00 book, you get $2.00.
NOTE: Our previous trade system of books for in-store credit has been discontinued. If you still have existing credit in your file, you will be able to use what you have on used book purchases, but moving forward all collections sold to our store will be finalized via cash.
- The owner of Hemingway’s Books (Dave Kyle) can make house calls for select large collections of books and/or records. Call us at the store to set up an appointment! Our phone number is 604-855-1894.
- We try to accept as many titles as we can but some books are so plentiful that we simply don’t need any more. We check all titles in our inventory system and accept the titles we need.
- Items must be clean and in Very Good condition or better. Our books are carefully selected. The books you take from us are in VG or better shape so we expect the same in return from you.
- Books with text highlighting, margin notes, prior owner inscriptions (Happy Birthday Mom! for instance), or books that are heavily soiled, reek of mould or smoke, or otherwise appear damaged will not be accepted.
- It is our policy to examine books carefully before making an offer. We have a secure lower floor where boxes may be stored while we appraise the collection. In these cases we give the owner a receipt and try to complete the appraisal as quickly as possible.
- Very often we may only offer to buy a portion of a collection. We don’t accept donations, and are unable to dispose of books we cannot sell.
Here is a general overview of some categories we are looking for. For a detailed list of books we need, see our “Top Books We Need” page!
FICTION/LITERATURE
- Recent pocketbook editions of current bestsellers. All genres (Romance, Mystery, Thriller, Historical, Horror, General Fiction).
- Contemporary literature, preferably in softcover.
- Classic literature, hardcover or softcover. George Orwell, Kurt Vonnegut, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Nabokov, Steinbeck, Joseph Heller, Aldous Huxley, etc.
- Modern fine-bindings, such as Folio Society, Easton Press, and Franklin Library.
- Antiquarian or vintage fine-bindings, preferably leather.
- Recent youth/teen titles.
- Classic kids series such as Dr. Seuss, Berenstain Bears, Bill Peet and Shel Silverstein.
- Science Fiction/Fantasy, preferably softcover.
- Comic Strips/Humour: Calvin & Hobbes, Peanuts, The Far Side, Zits.
- Popular Graphic Novels & Manga.
NON-FICTION TITLES
- Recent bestsellers.
- Recent memoirs.
- BC/Yukon history. Fraser Valley, pioneer stories, West Coast history, First Nations titles.
- First Nation Art. How-to Books on Art, wood carving, boat or canoe building.
- Military regimental and unit histories.
- Philosophy, clinical psychology. Nietzsche, Kant, Hume, Plato, Aristotle, Marcus Aurelius, Machiavelli, Adam Smith, Kierkegaard, Thoreau, Camus, Sartre, etc.
- Select religious titles: C. S. Lewis, Timothy Keller, Henri Nouwen, Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Bibles, Korans, books on Buddhism and Non-Belief.
- Books on blacksmithing, electrical work, farming, welding and related trades. Always looking for solar or other alternative power, reducing our carbon footprint in lifestyle and basic construction techniques.
- Outdoors titles for fishing, hunting and local guide-books. Guides for gems, gold-panning, wildlife, plant identification, etc. Survival manuals.
- Recent True Crime.
If you have books that don’t fit these categories, then click our “Contact Us” link and call or email us. We are always looking for new titles! You are welcome to email us lists or photos of what you’ve got and we can let you know whether we are interested before you bring them down to the store.
Books We DO NOT Take
- We are not interested in taking university textbooks, as they quickly go out of date as new editions are issued, and are therefore rendered useless for the following year’s students looking for their books. Of course, “textbooks” like English lit texts (ex. Pride and Prejudice, War and Peace, etc.) or philosophy texts are definitely of interest to us, depending on our current stock.
- Reader’s Digest compressed books, Harlequin romances, and older genre fiction hardcovers (ex. Lee Child, John Sandford, Stieg Larsson– these guys sell great in pocket book form, but the hardcovers do not!)
- Encyclopedia sets: unless they date back to the 1800s and are still in decent shape, books that are reference-based/encyclopedic in nature are just considered out of date. All of the information contained within is online now, so we have a rather hard time selling them!