The Book Thing

I don’t know how anyone could ever give this place less than 5 stars, because I’ve never seen anything like it. This place is a DEFINITE must-​visit while in Baltimore. The way this place works is that you walk in, take whatever books spark your fancy, and leave. So yes, the books are free! The vitality of the business relies on the hope that you’ll either return the books when you’re done with them, or donate your own unwanted books. I’ve found a good many gems in the classics section during my phase of binge-​reading classics. But seriously. Please give this place a visit when you get the chance, because you might end up with a couple of books that you’ve always been meaning to read but haven’t yet.

What’s better than free books? Free sex? Free pizza? Free Beer??? OK-​Yeah those are all up there…
Expect to get a little musty and dusty when you plan your visit. Just remember to bring some canvas bags, a box, strong children… something you can use to carry books and make it a great day.
They got everything, and the best part, (besides being free) is that they TAKE THE TIME to CATAGORIZE THE BOOKS! Unbelievable!
I feel so good about this place, that I regularly give them a donation… of used books, naturally!

You just can’t beat free. The Book Thing is an awesome resource for anyone in the area. Each time we go, it is an adventure as to what we will find. School textbooks, comics, recipe books on French cuisine; its all there.
There is also a lovely little reading garden nearby to peruse your new finds.

Fantastic place to search for new to you books. Small scholar end area but was able to find books for preschool through elementary. Tons of books organized by genre. Could’ve spent all afternoon looking.

I’m not a reader so I can’t speak for the quality of books or the options they offer, but I drove up here to grab 100+ hardcover books to use for an altered book project for my students. What could you possibly not like about free art materials… I mean. books?

The book thing is the most fantastic place!!! Thousands upon thousands of used books in four large rooms! Super friendly volunteers and everything is free!!!
Don’t park in the other warehouses parking lots, you will get towed!
If you love books, it is imperative that you make your way to the book thing!

BEST THING IN BALTIMORE.
Free books, as many as you want, an easy atmosphere, open all the time. Free for those who don’t have the money for books they love, explorers, and donors alike.

The Book Thing is one of the greatest places ever. A «store» where you are invited to take as many free books as you want, and greed is encouraged! The books are arranged by category, but not alphabetized so you will have to browse and explore. I have found many pristine bestsellers in the racks, as well as classics, and authors I have been meaning to try. Some of the books are in dubious shape, as the volunteers do their best to sort out the bad ones, but that sort of thing is subjective and you can’t argue with the price. Timid housewives may consider the area «sketchy», but you need to remember that this is a city and people live here. There is no HVAC, and it is only open on weekends, so if it’s a cold Saturday in January bundle up, and if it’s a muggy Sunday in August factor that into your browsing time.

This place is honestly THE BOMB. Literally FREE BOOKS all weekend long.
The only bad thing about it is that the building is very musky, and some of the books are super old, so they usually don’t leave the shelves, but the staff is very good about keeping the shelves circulated. They’ll move the old ones off the shelves and into their storage area, and then put out the «new» ones (or the ones that came in more recently, I guess).
Also, if you go in the afternoon (around 2 or 3pm?), that’s when everyone is actually up and doing something on a weekend, so it tends to be a little more crowded, but honestly it doesn’t really matter cuz FREE BOOKS *^-^*
*Note — Apparently the most books you can take out is 15,000 books «per person per day,» so feel free to go ham and satisfy all of your book desires

Yes, yes, YES! This place deserves more than 5 stars for its pure awesomeness. I was pretty much in book heaven here exploring shelf upon shelf of donated books up for grabs! I was especially surprised at how well-​organized the books where so it was easy to see if there was anything of interest. The volunteers there were very nice and helpful and asked if they could help us out with anything, but your best bet is to just spend some time browsing. One of the volunteers said, «Be greedy, folks!» Gotta love that mentality when it comes to free books, but I only took a few books that especially interested me. Thanks again, The Book Thing, for being so awesome!

For those who love books as much as they love themselves (and maybe even more) this place is AMAZING!!! You can get an unlimited number of books and the staff and patrons are so friendly! I went one day just to clear my mind and found some of the most unique finds on tons of topics. My favorite was the reference books (I majored in English and they have tons of grammar guides and writing guides. I was in heaven!!!)
Great place to bring your kids too. It’s like a library that you never have to return books to with the comfort of being in your grandparent’s basement! I have even invited friends from out of state to come to Baltimore JUST to visit this place!

Before going to The Book Thing, my brother and I prepared by each bringing a water tumbler and fans since a lot of reviewers talk about how hot and stuffy the place is. Since today was a beautiful and breezy day, the inside wasn’t stuffy at all, so we lucked out.
Anyway, I’m not really sure what the hangups are about this place:
1) It’s not in a bad location. It’s in hipster city. It might get a little sketchy a block or two away, but this is Baltimore City and that’s how it is here.
2) Yes, it’s only organized by genres and not by authors. But, you can’t expect the volunteers to spend countless man hours to continually organize everything for you. They’re not getting paid for this. Plus, one of the best things about this place — besides FREE books — is the adventure of finding unexpected treasures amongst the constantly changing stacks.
3) It’s not filled with unknown authors. I saw classic authors like Agatha Christie, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Harper Lee, just to name a few. And also contemporary ones like Dan Brown, Dean Koontz, and Robert Ludlum. It may not have an extensive selection of every known author in the universe, but it’s FREE and that’s good enough for me!
My brother and I ended up leaving with 7 books in total. I grabbed a random book from the mystery section, and I can’t wait to start reading it. I hope I picked up a great one!

THIS is FREEDOM. This is a treasure that should be in every city and town in America. A totally free bookstore. FREE. As in gratis. No money needed. Likely a 100,000 books. Lots of turnover too so always something new. Hit the classics section for great novels. Found several original O’Hara and a Roth in this section. Gardening, cookbooks, politics, children’s. we all left with something we were excited about.
Did I say it was free??? FREE
FREE.

Wonderful to see so many positive reviews about my favorite thing ever, books! The Book Thing probably doesn’t need any more gushing but I just wanted to bump the five star total up another notch :)
Will add that the building is a lot sketchier looking than anything you have in mind (intriguing, right?) and during the winter it is super cold so bring a coat and gloves! There’s a recommendations section in the back of the Fiction area which is where I found most of the four books I decided to take home, but obviously a lot of the fun here is scanning the crazy rows of unsorted books looking for that hidden gem. Really cool to see so many different editions and covers of books that haven’t been available for years.

How can you possibly give a place that literally hands out books for free anything less than 5 stars?!? Sure, it might not be organized for you to find things easily and the shopping experience isn’t the aesthetically-​pleasing Barnes and Noble experience you’ll get 15 minutes away from here… but it’s FREE!
I’d definitely recommend devoting a good amount of time (and some of your own book donations!) to this place. You can find some good gems if you look hard enough… or just pick out some random selections from a category you like with no real risk!

Love this place. So glad to have a place like this to send our books! Donations can be made at any time. They have big bins outside.

1 million out of 5 stars for The Book Thing.
When I hopped out of my car, a friendly passerby jutted his thumb towards the place and asked, «Have you ever been here before?» I said «Nope!» He said «Good. That means you’re not addicted yet!»
Oh passing prophetic stranger, how right you were!
The review-​y part of this review is as follows: this place has GOT the books. Most of it is obscure, old, and quirky, but there’s a charm to that too! You’ll find walls of old romance novels and other dime-​a-​dozen tomes. But what’s great is that you’ll also find a lot of classics and even some recent New York Times bestsellers.
The poetry section runs out FAST so consider yourself lucky if you nab a good poetry book! The fiction section (both the section itself and the recommendations) aren’t organized so it’s tough to *look* for a specific title. But, I really think the Book Thing is a place of discovery — you might not find what you were looking for, but if you just let yourself get lost among the shelves, it’s almost a guarantee you’ll find something that piques your interest.
Alright, now to why I *really* think the Book Thing deserves 1 million (5 stars). It was a JOY to see so many people, families and children coming in with empty boxes to nab some books on a weekend morning. Keep in mind that they stamp each book with a «do not resell» label (which, for the cynics out there, I *hope* deters any money-​grubbing intent).
Just thinking of how many kids will go home with oodles of books to keep and read along with how many people curious about a subject can own something that will teach them about it makes me unspeakably happy. What a gift this place brings to so many people! What a brilliant idea and what a gem for the City of Baltimore.
In the words of Maya Angelou, rest her soul, «all knowledge is spendable currency, depending on the market.» With this idea in mind, the humble Book Thing is quite literally a treasure trove!

Holy free books batman!
I had a bunch of books I wanted to get rid of and this was the perfect place to donate my books! I felt like they were going to a better place than if I had donated them to Good Will.
This place was larger than I expected, but man it was really hot in there. It is what it is. Its a pretty cool place. I will definitely bring a tote bag next time I come here. I was dumb and didn’t bring one the first time.

The book thing is a little unusual. First of all, all the books are free. Every last one of them. The only catch is you can only take 150,000 per day, per person. They actually encourage you to be greedy here and take as many books as you want. Secondly, it’s only open on weekends.
I did some reading, and found out the story behind the store is just as unusual and heart warming. In short, The owner/​director of this nonprofit used to bartend locally and during happy hours he would hear teachers talk about not having enough books in schools. He took his tip money to buy some books at thrift stores and garage sales to offer, he eventually got a van filled with books, then a basement room, and then bought this dusty book-​lined location off Greenmount.
You can find the owner roaming around, he’s very involved (he personally inspects every book received to make sure it does not contain pornography, bomb-​making instructions or out-​of-​date CPR instructions, I’m putting this out there for some of you who were hoping to find vintage nude photos in copy of Great Expectations, I guess you’re gonna have to look for your porn the old fashioned way: on the interwebs or tinder) and will often come around and ask if you need help looking for anything.
For a «store» run by volunteers, I actually think it is quite well organized. Being to so close to John Hopkins, the best part of visiting is the text books and reading materials donated by students. I have a collection of old medical texts and books about diseases, and this is definitely a place to pick up more books about smallpox, the plague, etc. etc. I kind of have a thing for reading books on diseases and history of disease, first of all, I studied epidemiology, second of all, this usually happens when I’m reading a book:
Creepy guy on metro/​on the beach: Hey girl, what are you reading about?
Me:the rise of antibiotic-​resistant gonorrhea
Creepy guy: Ok bye.
You can get the same result from reading wedding magazines, but I don’t find those as interesting.
There are several bookshelves in the center of the store with the owner’s recommendations, which contain more recent bestsellers, which I recommend pursuing.
Now onto some logistics, if you plan on visiting. Plan to spend more than an hour and you will need the following things:
1)Tote bag for your books
2)Comfy shoes to stand around in
3) Tissues and allergy meds. It’s super dusty in here.
Now, I can’t wait to take my new finds, pack them in a beach tote and read at the beach!!!

BOOKS.
THEY ARE ALL FREE.
FREE!!!
Hundreds of books & magazines, organized by genre in a few large rooms in a warehouse. All for your taking!
What a special place. I think I’d be here every weekend if I lived even an hour drive away just to spend hours looking through the stacks. This place was really one, if not the most, of the biggest highlights of visiting Baltimore for an avid bookworm like myself. If only this concept could expand to more cities!