Am I being unreasonable where books are concerned?

I often put stuff outsude our front door marked " Free to Good Home" Usually goes. Please try this with your books. We meaning, Gransnet value books and I think it's also the fact that we have read from them to our Grandchildren. If you can't get rid of them in anyway that has been suggested, then have them put back in the loft.They, ie son and daughter in law can just damn well wait get rid later, and you won't feel the hurt.

This is a good idea but wouldn’t work for me as we live on a very busy main road.I will try BlueBelle’s suggestions.

I spend over 40 years trying to find my favourite book from childhood. My mum had given ( or thrown away) all of my books. When I eventually found a copy on EBay I was in tears of joy when it arrived. It was very old and in terrible condition and someone could easily have thrown it away thinking no one could possibly want it.

Freecycle is good for giving things away . Ive just had a pre lit artificial xmas tree picked up by a local church. We're just having a small tree this year now my sons are all grown up. So we're going to go and visit it at xmas time !

I still have books I was given when I was 8. That was in 1948. Nobody except me would want them, though, because they are very battered through much use (and love).

If any of them are old school stories - Angela Brazil, Chalet School, etc - there are always eager amateur collectors looking for copies they don’t have!

I cherish my books like a treasure. Would never give them up. It is enrichment for any house. But this is just me..

Greenfinch. Maybe a museum would be interested in your family bibles?

Do you have a Freecycle group?

Books are sacred. Why do they have to help you de-clutter? Their standards or yours? Car boot sounds great

Here in France there are display cases in the village for book exchange. They are filled with books. One takes a book and replaces it with another, or read and put back. Absolutely fantastic way of "read and pass me on".

Do you have a local Freegle or Freecycle group near you? I advertised some on our local group and was surprised at how many replies I got asking for them.
I was surprised that people wanted old videos of my husband’s as well.

I've seen old telephone boxes turned into libraries where people donate books. Also, little cupboards in the street for the local residents to place and borrow books. But if you love these books, keep them. One day, it will be someone else's problem, but not such a bad one. ☺️

Ask your local children’s Services if they know of any local charities catering for women and children who might want them - or ask them if there is a Women’s Refuge in the area who’d want them.
When I ran a refuge we would have snapped them up.

My family have always been concerned with books. My mother was a bookbinder before the advent of machinery. Grandfather printer of books and then husband sold bookbinding machinery until he was made redundant. I have always loved books and have loads of reference books and books of all the famous artists Monet etc. my son has a leather bound set of Dickens which belonged to my father. I gave him the Biggles and Enid Books he had as a child.
It is so sad that youngsters now hardly know what a book looks like and books just go on the bonfire.

Thanks Annehinkly. I like the idea but I feel it would be too expensive to have them restored. One has its heavy metal cover detached.

There is a company called Ziffit who will either buy them or recycle them, I run a library and they are brilliant

I don’t know if this would be any help to you, but it might be to others. I’ve seen some lovely little village book libraries over the years. I’ve found a picture online of one.

My son recently was very excited to find that I still had his old Rupert annual and book of Giles cartoons. So there must still be a market for books.

I put unwanted books on my garden wall for people to take. This worked really well till the last time, when well-meaning folks assumed they needed to leave their own contributions in exchange!
Have a look at some of the earliest of your books. Some might be first editions and worth a bit. You never know..

I take books to my local Oxfam bookshop and they ll happily accept any. Other than that a car boot sale, plus there are still second hand bookshops around, you might have something valuable if you ve got any first editions

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Disclaimer: I love books! Can't live without them. I'm in the process of sorting and disposing of tons of them for my children's sake.

Niucla97 I think what your son and daughter-in-law might be struggling not to say is that they will have the job of getting rid of the books when 'you are gone', so to speak. The books are no good to anyone (including you) in suitcases in the loft. If they are really that important to you, get them down, put them on shelves and read them! Otherwise, since no one else wants them, they are so much useless clutter. why not do your son a favour, be ruthless with yourself, make the decision and dump the books and any other stuff you neither want or need? I'm in the process of doing this myself, inspired by an upcoming, village car boot sale. With my son's help, I've emptied all the junk out of a walk-in wardrobe and created a lovely sewing room out of the space. I've made a decision not to use the room until all the junk is gone. I'm getting there and I promise you, it's cathartic! I won't post a photo of the junk that used to live behind those doors. I'm ashamed of it!

The after school and holiday club that I help run is always after books. Toddler groups might like them too?

For 27 years I volunteered at a charity shop! I processed all donated books . Over the years those ‘upstairs’ decided books were not a good thing so had more & more rules thrust at us & prices were crazy. So sales declined! Over Lockdowns because of inactivity my health has declined so much that I could not return! A friend who still volunteers there says there are very few books being sold now as they are not considered worth it! So who is too blame for this? Maybe the Charities are becoming too fussy & ok have to make money for the Charities but it is upsetting that as I spent my life working in Libraries until Medical Retirement hit the place that sold 100’s of books per week now does not want them! My friend said many people have asked why there are so few books available now? Probably because we do not want to just throw away all our memories?

I found 'freegle' group in my mother's town the best when I had to clear her house of all manner of items. People responded promptly and arrived at door to collect. Over the years I have sourced old copies of books online for example to replace a tattered copy of a favourite book for my mother, usually for small cost and postage.Sometimes I lend a precious book and if not returned I can replace. There is a definite market out there for old out of print books.