/lit/ - Literature

Dollar Tree was carrying the KJV for a hot minute back in 2013. Printing and binding was what you'd expect for a dollar, but hey. Never saw a cheaper edition.

>>20597991
>KJV
Kleptomaniac Jewish Vaginas?

poor people cant fucking read,
what do you think.

>>20597975
I found Picture of Dorian Gray and The Red and the Black at Goodwill, but finding classic lit is very rare and the selection is almost nothing but bibles, airport novels, and children's books.

you guys are going to call me gay for this but i always get a weird depressed feeling whenever i go to a dollar tree. something about the florescent lights and how quiet and cluttered they usually are is very comfy and very depressing at the same time. its similar to the feeling you get when you go to a sleepy little town in the midwest in the usa. ive actually started checking out the book sections there just for fun and its always really trashy romance or teen dystopia stuff there but its crazy to me. somebody sat down and wrote it, probably (maybe, who knows) put a lot of effort into it and had it psychically printed and distributed and now its here in this dead end little store. do you think anybody other the author and editor reads these things? or do they just sit on the shelves until new stock comes in and then they get thrown into the trash? it makes me feel very sad.

>>20597975
>work at dollar tree
>get on 4chan to rest from work
>threads about fucking dollar tree

>>20597991
I'm not even one of you christfags and I bought one, and a couple rosaries, because I can't stop buying stuff at Dollar Tree. I'm like an ultra wealthy man in there.

>>20597975
Yes, I've bought a few sci-fi novels and book on Chinese history.

I've never been inside a dollar store that sold actual books

>>20597975
Not anymore. There's a trend on youtube where you go thrifting - dollar store included - and resell on ebay for a profit. They take every book that is over an inch in length and list them- there's your answer.

>>20598226
The world has been infected and taken over by this petty huckstering and short-sighted antisocial individualism

Something will manifest soon and burn all this accreted garbage off the human soul

>>20598125
I have good memories of the dollar tree because it was one of the few stores where I could ask my parents for something and actually get it, and the candy's not bad either. Stopped by Dollar General a few months ago and it seemed to have a much stronger atmosphere of lower-class trashyness. I think the green theme of the dollar tree gives it more soul.

>>20598226
so books are going the way of video games, nice

>>20598156
Now that prices have gone up to $1.25 nothing there is a deal. Everything is more expensive per unit than at any other store.
Only the lousy laundry detergent is still a bargin.

>>20598111
My Goodwill had an excellent used books section. I found many rare and unusual editions there over the years. But they axed the used books section because they've probably come to realize the clientelle is illiterate and Abe will buy their donated books in bulk for a much wider profit margin.

Before you ask, the most interesting book I found at Goodwill was a small-print-run edition of a local Holocaust Survivor's memoir. Only about 500 copies were ever printed. In it she effectively admits the SS were humane, there were no gas chambers at Auschwitz, and she and her fellow Ashkenazi refugees stole Palestine.

>>20598111
The Goodwill by me has a massive set of romance novels someone donated that takes up basically an entire shelf. The only books I purchased from there were Pride and Prejudice and Catcher in the Rye, the rest is mostly schlock.

>>20598109
But how are you able to use the internet?

>>20598406
/lit/ doesn't read.

>>20598350
>they axed the used books section
Hate how they need 90% of the store to be women's clothes. We're lucky that the books are interspersed with the home goods.
>small-print-run edition of a local Holocaust Survivor's memoir. Only about 500 copies were ever printed
Name of book?

>>20598389
my salvation army had like 10 copies of this 90s rap single vinyl makes u wonder if the dude himself dropped them off. that must be a bitch when shit like that is so collectible, your 90s boom bap high point ends up in salvation army bin next to boomer christmas albums. i already forgot what it was. i had heard of them, they might have been on a clue tape once or twice, but i don't think ever had success.

>>20598465
>books are interspersed
aren't*

>>20598125
Is there a name for that kind of those disposable genre books that you find in the back corners of used book stores and on Dollar Tree shelves? William H. Gass (and others I'm sure) assert that the creation of a coherent piece of fiction is inevitably the creation of a brand new 'world' so to speak; I find the idea that thousands to worlds have been created (however carelessly) in the pages of these cheap genre novels and are essentially being left to rot in these kinds of stores on the shelves. Reading these novels is an interesting experience: its like entering a "dead" or sterile or "ended" world if that makes sense: like entering a room that has clearly been set up (furniture has been arranged, walls have been painted, etc.) but hasn't been seen/entered by another person for a long time. There are so many of those books that haven't been cataloged or scanned or preserved in any way and eventually they'll be destroyed and the world that was created will just cease to exist.

>>20598507
old crpgs are like that too, what amazing worlds and adventures are in some old forgotten dos game from 1988 know what i mean...

https://crpgbook.files.wordpress.com/2022/05/crpg-book-expanded-edition_3.2b.pdf

>>20598226
I fucking hate these people, thankfully they're idiots who make basically nothing doing this (considering the time they have to spend)

>>20598569
i only donated shit to goodwill if i couldn't sell it on ebay first so good luck with that, also my sister's old bf worked at salvation army and the employees would always snatch up anything good before anyone had a chance to buy it which to be honest is fair since working there really sucked, at least let them get a chance at a pair of like new uggs or a kool and the gang vinyl for their toil.

>>20598465
It seems they just have less of everything these days. Quality and quantity of all goods are just dropping off. The era of bygone-consumer-goods surpluses is effectively over.

Ten years ago it struck me that though I'm a poorfag, knowing how to shop secondhand yelided a standard of living which rivaled the bourgeoisie of the 19th century. In many cases, because you were getting the castoffs of the 60s thru 80s, the quality of clothing and cookware was actually higher than contemporary equivalents.

All of that's done. The Decline is truly upon us. I'm glad I got a few decent durables out of it before it was all over.

>Name of book
Lili: A Memory of the Holocaust

>>20598006
Wildly unfunny.

>>20598507
>Is there a name for that kind of those disposable genre books that you find in the back corners of used book stores and on Dollar Tree shelves?
Mass-market paperbacks.

>There are so many of those books that haven't been cataloged or scanned or preserved in any way
No matter how shitty, any book published within the United States must have two copies tithed to the Library of Congress.

>>20597975
Found a book on astrophysics in a liquidation market for 5$. Brother bought a political science book for 8$.

>>20598819
>No matter how shitty, any book published within the United States must have two copies tithed to the Library of Congress.
Actually, submission of a work to the Library of Congress is entirely voluntary. Also, mass-market paperbacks are specifically ineligible for inclusion in the Library.

>>20598819
There are plenty of normal literary novels that are published in mass market paperback editions; mass market paperback describes the format of the book, not necessarily the content. What I'm talking about specifically is this genre-within-a-genre of fiction that is almost completely disposable

>No matter how shitty, any book published within the United States must have two copies tithed to the Library of Congress.
Like >>20598883 said, I thought that was voluntary

>>20600168
Those are still called "mass-market paperbacks." It's kind of like the term "pulp fiction." Pulps are, technically speaking, a printing process and medium. The genre of pulp fiction takes its name from the medium it was published in, the same way mass-market paperbacks take their name from the format.

They're also sometimes called airport novels, though that tends to refer more to a subset of mass-market paperbacks by best-selling authors with big marketing campaigns, moreso than the generic, disposable novels you're talking about.

While some literary novels (less than you'd think) are published as mass-market paperbacks, that's in addition to a hardcover or trade paperback. In fact, before the widespread adoption of the trade paperback format, the terms mass-market paperback and paperback were essentially synonymous, which you can see evidenced in things like the Beattle's song "Paperback Writer."

When they're specifically romances (which is easily the largest genre), they're usually just called "romances," since that genre gets no literary respect.

I have a Dollar Tree KJV. I also bought a copy of Fresh Complaint by Jeffrey Eugenides from there but I haven't read it yet.

Goodwill can have a pretty good selection sometimes

>Dollar Tree
>KJV
Burgers ruining the board content again...

>>20597975
I remember finding all of Franzen's books a couple years back lol. That's what the market thinks of one of /lit/'s favorite writer, a dollar store type of nigga

>>20597991
>Never saw a cheaper edition
>he doesn't get free copies hanging on his mailbox every year or two from shilling mormons
>not having a small pile of kjv and mormon bibles on your bookshelf which you've never touched
must be a local phenomenon

>>20597975
Our equivalent to the dollar store mostly carries the mystery and adventure books that even in a regular bookstore would be cheap. I get them for my dad, cause he likes this stuff.
Did find some Lovecraft, though.

>>20598226
>>20598244
>>20598569
My best friend is an ebay reseller, he's been at it for over a decade and rakes in about 85k net per year. What he does is absolutely providing a valuable service which is why there's money in it.

Some people have more money than time and want to get rid of stuff, which is why they sell it for cheap at garage sales or give it away. Some people have more money than time and want to buy stuff, which is why they pay a premium on eBay to have it located, tested, cleaned, and shipped to their house. Point out what is evil about giving both sets of people exactly what they want.

>>20598129
Why are your stores so dirty?

>>20597991
What happened?

no, since everything cheap enough for the dollar store also comes in ebook form and can be gotten for free off libgen. if they sold audiobooks it would be a different story since audiobookbay doesnt have the best selection and even private trackers dont have everything.

I remember buying goosebumps books at Dollarama like over 20 years ago

>>20597975

My local Dollar Tree is full of obese retards who actually matter of factly look retarded. You can see it it on their face.

>>20598125

And this too, the store is dimly lit, unswept, unmopped, and everything is cluttered about.


>>20598129

Why do you work at Dollar Tree??? Are you too obese and retarded to work $15 and hour at Target or something?

I remember buying a stack of Kurt Vonnegut for a dollar each and just stocking them in my car, in my locker, under my bed etc. as backup reads. Its how I grew to like Kurt honestly as I read most of them fully interchangeably

>>20597975
I got a copy of Call of the Wild/White Fang and I keep meaning to read it over the winter, but I always forget. A lot of Dollar Trees seem to have those same copies.

>>20597991
I remember these there as late as 2019ish (right before covid, at least)

>>20597991
I'm curious to know just how cheaply made they are. You make it sound like the pages will fall out the moment flip through them.

>>20603730
I'm dead convinced some bible publishing houses operate at a loss. No matter how cheap the tissue paper and glue paperback binding is, it's so much print to sell so cheaply that they must have some wealthy evangelical donors propping them up.

>>20598807
So is your mom's pussy but you don't hear me complaining about it.

once i saw a box of free unwanted books left outside a building, i took a copy of Men of Men by Wilbur Smith from it, it was good. I keked when Smith describes the nigs setting the scopes of their rifles to max because they think it makes their guns shoot harder. Just like in that one 4chan post describing the exact same thing.

>>20598006
What?

>>20604410
one time i was walking through a yuppie neighborhood with million dollar condos and saw some finance textbooks on the sidewalk on recycling night, wanted to take the so bad but i didn't want to look homeless.

>>20598129
Kek

not dollar stores, but dont remind me
my goodwill is the source of half my booksheld, it was amazing, with weekly rotations of the entire book inventory

now someone decided to be lazy and they have the same garbo girl with dragon tattoo and nicholas sparks collections forever, idk Ive stopped going to even check anymore

Ive moved on to my library network, they have a great collection, as for keeping books, back to amazon for now

now im sour, you have no idea how dissapointed I am with my goodwill