Half Price Books, the used-book chain with 82 stores in 17 states, has begun selling more than 100,000 volumes it bought from Penguin's warehouse in Bristol, England. The majority of the books are available in Half Price stores, while 5,000 copies will be available online through Abebooks.com. The Penguin collection includes paperback copies of books by D.H. Lawrence, Iris Murdoch, George Orwell and James Joyce, some of which include notes written by Penguin's editorial staff. Penguin sold the archive when it decided to move its warehouse.
Half Price president and CEO Sharon Anderson Wright told PW that "the more standard stuff" has been disbursed among the company's stores and is selling for $3—$8. Most of the titles, particularly "the interesting ones," remain in Dallas, Tex., where Half Price headquarters is located. Among the unusual items: an autographed copy of Thomas Harris's Red Dragon that is selling for $1,200 and a Saul Bellow title dedicated to Harold Brodkey.
Abebooks is featuring an article on its Web site on collecting Penguin books by Steve Hare, author of Penguin's 60th anniversary book Penguin Portrait and trustee of the Penguin Collectors' Society in London, England.
Half Price sells used music, movies and sidelines in addition to books and has a publishing program that specializes in history and cookbooks, which the company plans to expand. Half Price opens four or five stores a year and has annual sales of $128 million. The average store is 8,000—10,000 square feet; the largest, in Dallas, is 53,000 square feet. "We're doing well because in a slow economy books are good, cheap entertainment," Wright said.
