Video: 3 Good Books I Found at Thrift Stores

I’ve often heard that reading is too expensive.

It costs a lot to buy these books, especially if you’re a Booktuber and posting book hauls. Here’s a secret: you can get books for cheap (and even free)!

I used to love perusing thrift stores for funky book finds. You can also find some good ones at Friends of the Library sales, or borrow them for free from the library.

Another secret: check out the clearance sections at bookstores like Barnes & Noble. Often, bookstores have overstock they have to get rid of once the initial brouhaha has passed. The result: you can get new hardbacks for around $6 a few months after their release dates.

Thrift stores are especially great because you can find books you might not have thought of before. I know a couple of these books in particular are out of print, so they were especially great finds. So without further ado, here they are:

Are You Anybody? by Marilyn Funt.

Marilyn Funt was married to Allen Funt of Candid Camera fame. In Are You Anybody?, she interviews other wives of celebrities, including Dick Clark, Muhammed Ali, Johnny Carson, Howard Cosell, Kirk Douglas, Sammy Davis Jr., William Shatner, and Billy Graham’s wives.

As time will tell, many of these marriages since broke up, including Marilyn Funt’s. But some actually made it for the long haul. In the interviews, many of the women talk about happiness in their domestic lives, which to me seems to defeat the purpose of the book. But I digress.

It’s an interesting look at privileged ladies trying to find justification for their lives lived in their husbands’ shadows.

Or maybe I’m being harsh and looking at 1979 domestic lives with a 2017 lens. I should be more appreciative of the effort.

How to Talk with Practically Anybody About Practically Anything by Barbara Walters.

This book showcases Barbara Walters in her hard news prime.

She talks about her interviews with famous political and international figures. Interestingly, she also talks about how much she does not like interviewing celebrities; they’re just so self-centered.

Ironic, considering in the following decades she would become the quintessential celebrity interviewer, as she could draw them out of their shells like no other.

Even Cowgirls Get the Blues by Tom Robbins.

Ah, the ballad of Sissy Hankshaw. It’s been many years since I read this wonderfully weird book, but here are the main things that stick with me:

Sissy has huge thumbs, she embarks on her own odyssey via hitchhike, and wackiness abounds.

This book made a Tom Robbins fan in me. In fact, I think I have some reading to do…

I’d love to hear about your own wacky finds. Have you come across some out of the norm books in your own searches? Share in the comments.

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