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I'm looking for a copy of The Last Course by Claudia Fleming.

It's out of print and I can't find one anywhere that's even close to the list price.

Does anybody have ideas about how to find affordable out of print cookbooks?

Maybe EYB should have a cookbook exchange section on this website!

People could list books for trade.  I think that would be fun.

I find a lot of cookbooks at library booksales.  You can't beat the price (at most $2 for a hardcover!)  However, it's very hit or miss if you're looking for something specific.

Try the Buy This Book links here on EYB.  Book Depository, if they don't have something, refers you to Abe Books, and I was able to find a Portuguese book I'd been looking for through them.  In addition to Amazon and Book Depository don't forget Barnes & Noble which also offers links to used book vendors.  One way or another you're liable to find the book, but the sellers all know these sites, of course, and set their prices accordingly.  If it's too expensive, just wait.  They may come down in price eventually.  Or more copies may come onto the market, making it less rare.  

Debpiper - I'm going to be fighting you for that book!  Although I own a lot of cookbooks (obviously) it is my dessert and baking collection that gets the most love.  And that book is definitely a hole in my bookshelf.  I look at the cookbook shelves of every second hand bookstore I come across - I have a list of about 10 books I woud like to find.

We definitely would like to start some kind of cookbook swap scheme in the future.  But we have a lot of other development projects happening now.  In the meantime maybe take a look at Bookmooch.

Bookmooch is fairly useless for cookbooks, I find. In fact it's fairly useless for most books, unless you are in the US. Postal costs have gone up so much that most people won't ship outside their own country now. I've been a member for several years, accumulated hundreds of points, and the last time I successfully mooched a book was last August :(

Abebooks, on the other hand, is wonderful. i've been able to find a lot of long out-of-print books there, some of them for pennies. But if your book is rare and sought after, expect to pay over the list price for it.

Unfortunately the price on Abe for The Last Course is from $70 to $500 for used copies which is several multiples of the list price. On Amazon prices for new copies range from $287 to $800 and the used range is the same as Abe (probably the same resellers). I'll carry on looking in second hand bookstores!

I find a 'saved search' for the book title on ebay can be helpful as well. eBay will alert you for you're chosen amount of months if the title turns up. I was able to put together all my back volumes of Best Food Writing that way, at a very reasonable price. Save two searches, one under author, one under title, tick INCLUDE DESCRIPTION. While you'll end up with a lot more irrelevancies to trawl through, sometimes the key to your search isn't in the vendor's title, as a lot of eBay vendors aren't professional booksellers. Good luck.

A cookbook swap would be great - because of EYB I've started to buy (even...) more cookbooks recently, but all of them already a couple of years old. At the moment, I'm looking for another copy of Italian Coutnry Cooking: The secrets of cucina povera by Louke Werle for my mum's birthday. It seems I got the last copy from Book Depository et al. 

J. 

I know this thread is old, but if anyone is still looking for a copy of Claudia Fleming's The Last Course, Luisa Weiss who writes the blog The Wednesday Chef is running an auction for charity to benefit Legal Aid's Invisible Child Fund and has included her copy of the book. It's already over list price and likely to go higher, but if anyone is interested, all the proceeds go to a good cause. Auction ends on Friday (12/20/13) and there are 19 other books to bid on as well.

http://www.thewednesdayc...the-invisible-child.html

Thanks for alerting us Christine.  I have placed my bid ($150 gulp) - I have wanting this book for so long and this way the money goes to a good cause.

Thanks for letting us know about the auction. I have my bids in...no I'm not going for The Last Course. :) although if I get the 4 I'm bidding on it will still cost me almost $200. It's for a wonderful cause, so it's well worth it.

FINALLY!  I now have a copy of Claudia Fleming's THE LAST COURSE.  It is a wonderful book and I'm glad I kept on looking.  This copy is in perfect condition.  I found it on Amazon.  A new seller, just started, was very helpful and sent me pictures to assure me of the condition of the book (it was better than described on the listing).  AND it was less than $60 with free shipping.  SUCH A DEAL!

What does it take to make a publisher re-issue a book?

Ray S

I think the biggest stumbling blog may be renegotiating the original contract (for both words and photos) which would probably have expired for reprints. Unless publishers see that there is a lot of demand for the book, they don't consider it worth the time and expense. The orginal author may also have died so they would be negotiating with the estate which can be difficult There are some enterprising publishers such as Grub Street in the UK who reissue classic cookbooks - though for many of those they own the original publication rights. They published the reissue of The Book of Latin American Cooking by Elisabeth Lambert Ortiz for which we recently ran a contest.

Grub Street certainly do a good job - I have several of their reprints. What I can't stand are the poor quality scanned-in reprints where nobody proof-reads the result before rushing into print. Quadrille's reprint of Eliza Acton is most welcome. but the text quality is so poor as to make reading a pain.

Reading about "The Last Course" inspired me to look for one - found one from Books and Bygones - it arrived this morning as new condition but cost me a few quid!

Ray S

How much? I'm still looking!

I found a copy of "The Last Course" online at Goodwillbooks.com in Portland last July.  It was in the section without photos of the covers and near the end of the list of 4,500 books or so.  I instantly grabbed it as it was $48.39, a lot for me to pay for a Goodwill book, but a bargain for this one.  I found dozens of wonderful books there over the last two years but this fall they decided to remodel the warehouse and shipped all the books out to the dozens of Goodwill stores in the Portland area.  Now they only have a couple of hundred cookbooks online, most of them not that great, and I can't imagine driving to all the stores in the hopes of finding a specific book so my Goodwill cookbook finds have dried up.  But Jane, on Amazon they have two used copies of "The Last Course" in the used book section.  One is at the Goodwillbooks of Indiana and the other one is at Goodwillbooks of Ohio.  Both copies are about $89.  I don't know how you feel about a used copy but I have had excellent luck with the Goodwill books I have purchased online.  Many of the ones listed as used seem to be nearly near or barely used at all.

Jane - cost me £120 - just about my whole year's allowance for spanding on cookery books, but there's not much else out there that I wnat (need?) at present...I've promised myself to stop at 500 - Last Course was #496. Maybe a couple of SIME's dual language Italian/English ones - I'm very impressed by their "Alpine Flavours".

Ray