Books
Buy and sell books in Costa Rica.
Cuentos de mi tía Panchita is still on the Ministry of Education’s reading list a century after it was first published, and a clean copy bought for one child is still wanted by the next class. That is the steadiest part of the trade in printed books, new and pre-owned: the readers schools assign, alongside the coloring books, wildlife guides and cookbooks families pass on. Buying used saves the most on imported novels, which rarely cost under ₡8,000 new. Sellers range from households clearing a bookcase to small publishers with older editions, and price and pickup are agreed with them directly.
Coloring books, wildlife guides and cookbooks:
books split by who they are for more than by genre. Coloring books are bought for a particular age, and a thin one with bold outlines for a preschooler is a different purchase from an adult pattern book on heavy paper. Animal books run from picture books for small children to field guides for people who actually go out looking for birds and frogs, and outdoor books sit next to them with hiking and camping. Cookbooks and parenting books are adult reference titles, kept for years and passed on once the kitchen or the children have moved on.
The MEP reading list and the books that come back each school year:
it explains why a novel bought in seventh grade still has a buyer years later. The Ministry of Education publishes recommended readings for each cycle, from first-grade story collections to the novels and plays read in colegio, and many titles stay on the list for years. National classics such as Aquileo Echeverría’s Concherías and Fabián Dobles’ Historias de Tatamundo sit beside translated works. Check two things. First, the edition: page numbers move between publishers, and when a class reads by page a different edition gets awkward, so ask the teacher before you pay. Second, whether the book is complete: cheap grade-by-grade anthologies collect extracts, which is fine for class exercises but not when the whole novel is assigned.
National editions, imported paperbacks and the used copy in between:
the gap between them is where second-hand books earn their keep. Most titles from Costa Rica’s state and university presses, EUNED and Editorial Costa Rica among them, cost under ₡10,000 new, so a used copy of a national author saves little and sells mainly on convenience. Imported novels are another matter: even a short paperback rarely costs less than ₡8,000 to ₡10,000 new, which is why a read imported paperback in good shape at around ₡3,000 to ₡5,000 is where buying used pays off. Hardback field guides and illustrated cookbooks hold more of their price, because they are expensive new and rarely get read to pieces.
A second-hand book, checked from the copyright page outward:
start with the page behind the title page, which gives the publisher, the edition and the printing. Then flip through every page. Pencil notes rub out; pen and highlighter do not, and a reader full of someone else’s answers is a worse book to study from. Wavy, stiff pages mean the book got wet, and a musty smell with grey or brown spots means mould, which tends to spread to the books shelved beside it. Small holes and grazed patches along the inner margin are silverfish. Open a glued paperback flat in the middle: if the spine cracks and pages lift, they will come loose. Pirated copies of popular novels and textbooks exist too. Blurred or greyish print, thin paper, a pixelated cover and crooked trimming give them away, and they are worth far less than the real book.
Listing a school reader or a box of novels:
works best when it answers what a buyer would otherwise ask one message at a time. Put the exact title, author and publisher in the heading, and for a reader add the grade it was assigned in. Photograph the cover, the copyright page and any damage, and say plainly whether the notes are in pencil or pen. Novels, poetry and school readers go straight under books rather than into one of the five sub-categories. List readers in the weeks before the school year starts, when parents are working through the list, and a full grade’s set in one listing is an easier sale than single titles. Students finishing undécimo usually have a whole shelf to pass on, and a buyer coming to collect it should bring the school’s list and check it title by title before paying.