Books

Feature Archives

AbeBooks regularly publishes fascinating features about a huge variety of bookish subjects, including rare books and collecting, authors, publishers, and interesting characters in literature and notable anniversaries. Our lists are second to none in the book world and designed to inspire your next read or collectible purchase. Browse our feature archives below and you will discover unique content that will both entertain and inform.

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Books
Summer reads for every adventure
29 July, 2024
Looking for the book that best fits your holiday? Find your next adventure in our series of four, hand-picked summer reading lists.
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Books
Classic mysteries from the golden age of crime
08 December, 2022
The British Library's Crime Classics series reprints detective novels and stories that were first published during the golden age of crime writing. Discover a selection of titles from the series.
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Books
The best books of 2022
07 November, 2022
The top fiction and non-fiction books of 2022. Our top picks for the best books of the year include Jennifer Egan, Ian McEwan, Kate Atkinson, Celeste Ng, NoViolet Bulawayo, and Brit Pop star Jarvis Cocker.
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The International Booker Prize: award winners
18 May, 2022
A complete list of the International Booker Prize-winning books since 2016. Find signed copies of the best modern novels.
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There are 238 results that match your search. 238 results
Companion Book Club
Books
The Companion Book Club: literature from the swinging sixties
27 August, 2021
Book club editions often receive short shrift from booksellers and collectors. Written off as mass market reprints, they are very low on the literary pecking order. But consider the Companion Book Club for a moment… if only for the feast of beautiful cover art that is displayed on this page.
Manuscripts & Paper Collectables
Vintage maps, pamphlets and travel guides
By Julie Oreskovich 27 August, 2021
Vintage road and tourism maps are one of the fastest growing areas of collectables. Before the advent of smart phones, people relied on folded maps, pamphlets and travel guides to get from A to B.
Textbooks
Engineering textbooks
27 August, 2021
Buy new and secondhand engineering textbooks on AbeBooks and save. Students don’t have to pay full-price for new textbooks from the university bookshop anymore. Buying secondhand textbooks online saves students more than 50% off the list price.
Books published by Mills & Boon
Books
Mills & Boon
27 August, 2021
You might have never read a Mills & Boon book but you know exactly what this publisher offers - romance, more romance and even more romance. You can recognize those covers a mile away - the tall dark hero, six-pack visible, and a swooning girl.
Iconic book covers
Books
Iconic book covers
27 August, 2021
In no particular order, we present a selection of iconic book covers that we love. If you saw these particular editions in a bookshop window, then we believe you would stop and stare.
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Fine Art, Prints & Posters
Art terms from A to Z
27 August, 2021
New to the world of art collecting? Use our art terms guide to help you brush up on all the lingo related to collecting art.
Wisden Cricketers' Almanack
Rare Books
Collecting the Wisden Cricketers Almanack
27 August, 2021
It’s the most famous yellow book in the world. Published every year since 1864, Wisden Cricketers’ Almanack is a sporting institution and it’s still going strong as influential and essential as ever.
Penguin's first 10 books
Books
Penguin's first 10 books
By Richard Davies 27 August, 2021
It’s a story you may have heard before but the tale surrounding the birth of Penguin is always worth retelling. Step back to 1935 and the publication of the first 10 Penguin books. Each one cost just six pence at a time when hardcovers were priced at seven or eight shillings – those 10 books revolutionized publishing.
Biggles books by Captain W.E. Johns
Books
Big on Biggles
By Richard Davies 27 August, 2021
Biggles has been fighting off bandits at 2 o’clock since 1932. He’s legend of children’s literature and one of the great adventure heroes.
Collectible books from 2000-2009
Books
Most collectable books of the decade (2000-2009)
26 August, 2021
AbeBooks has compiled a list of the most collectable books published between 2000 and 2009. Classify these books as hyper modern first editions. It usually takes a long time, sometimes decades, for a book’s value to be determined but these treasures became collectable in a hurry.
Pelican books
Books
Pelican books: a flock of non-fiction
By Beth Carswell 26 August, 2021
Pelican Books is the non-fiction imprint of Penguin Books. While the Penguin umbrella may be best-known for fiction and for keen design, the Pelican imprint was brought about with an eye on education over entertainment.
Books for children of the 1990s
Books
12 books you'll remember if you were a child in the 1990s
26 August, 2021
See our list of the books you'll remember if you were a child in the 1990s.
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Books
12 books you'll remember if you were a child in the 1950s
26 August, 2021
A key part of every childhood is the books we read. From authors like E.B. White, C.S. Lewis and Enid Blyton, we found words that opened our imaginations, and took us to strange, wonderful new realities.
Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking by Marcella Hazan
Rare Books
A guide to collecting cookbooks
25 August, 2021
Move over Hemingway, Steinbeck and Twain. Humble cookbooks have become highly desirable in the book collecting world.
City of Thieves by David Benioff
Books
Two-sitting reads
By Beth Carswell 17 August, 2021
What is it that makes a book so captivating that we shirk obligations, risk papercuts, and forget basic necessities like food and water while lost in its pages?