Where do you find good second-hand books?

A second-hand book has two plots: the one inside and the one on the flyleaf. Somebody's name, a train ticket used as a bookmark, an inscription to a person you'll never meet. That's part of the appeal. The other part is price: you can take more chances on unfamiliar writers when a book costs less than a coffee.

Charity shops

The cheapest and most random option. Stock depends on who in the neighbourhood has been clearing shelves, so shops in areas with lots of readers, students or retirees tend to be better. Some charities run specialist bookshops; Wikipedia's article on Oxfam, for example, notes that its UK shops include specialist book shops, and Oxfam shops in Germany and France sell books too.

How to shop them well:

• Go regularly. Stock turns over constantly; the best books go fast.
• Scan spines, not covers. You'll cover a shelf in a minute.
• Check the fiction and the "classics" shelves, and also the oddities: travel, food and old paperbacks are often underpriced.

Independent second-hand bookshops

More expensive than charity shops, but the stock has been chosen by someone who knows books. Ask what's just come in, and tell them what you collect or love: good booksellers remember. These are the shops for out-of-print titles, older translations and nicer editions.

The patron saint of this kind of shopping is Helene Hanff, whose 84, Charing Cross Road (1970) is made from twenty years of letters between her, in New York, and the staff of a London antiquarian bookshop, Marks & Co, who found her the books she couldn't get at home. According to Wikipedia's article on the book, the correspondence began in 1949 and grew into a long-distance friendship. It is short, funny and moving, and it will make you want to write to a bookseller.

Markets, fairs and book towns

Book stalls at flea markets, book fairs and seasonal library sales are good for a browse with no agenda. Haggle politely if you are buying a stack.

For a whole day out, there are book towns. Hay-on-Wye, on the Welsh border, is the best known in Britain: Wikipedia describes it as a town of over twenty bookshops, often called a "town of books", and the home of the Hay Festival, though it notes the number of bookshops has fallen in recent years.

Italy has its own romance of second-hand selling. The Bancarella Prize, a literary award founded in the early 1950s in the Lunigiana area of Tuscany, grew out of the long tradition of travelling booksellers from that area who carried cheap books to towns all over Italy, according to the Italian Wikipedia entry on the prize. Market stalls selling old books, bancarelle, are still worth a look in many Italian cities.

Online

Best when you want a specific book. Large marketplaces gather listings from many small shops, so you can compare copies and prices. Read the condition description carefully, and favour sellers who describe flaws honestly.

What to check in a used copy

• The spine. Cracked spines on paperbacks mean pages may come loose.
• The pages. Flick through for heavy underlining, missing pages, water damage or brown spots.
• The smell. A little mustiness is charming; a damp smell is not, and you won't want it next to your other books.
• The edition. For classics and translations, check the translator and date on the copyright page. Our page on which edition of a classic to buy explains why it matters.
• Inscriptions. A price written in pencil is normal. A dedication can be a bonus.