About.
Like Discogs, but for books.
2manybooks is a place for people who have too many books and somehow keep buying more. Books, magazines, posters, and other printed matter. Catalog what you own, find obscure editions, discover forgotten publishers, and see what other people are hoarding.
Make your library public so strangers can judge your taste. Or keep it private and judge yourself. It's free. Unfortunately, the books aren't.
Our story.
In January 2025, the Los Angeles wildfires threatened our home. We'd spent years collecting thousands of books. Rare editions, obscure publications, things we'd carried across several countries for reasons we could no longer explain. Some were worth a lot. Some were worth absolutely nothing. And we had no record of any of them.
We didn't know what most of it was worth, whether it could be replaced, or how we'd explain any of it to an insurance company. "Well, it had a really nice cover" probably wasn't going to cut it. So we started cataloging everything by hand. Which, when you own thousands of books, is a particularly miserable way to spend your time.
We figured someone must have solved this already. Discogs had done it for records. Books were apparently left to fend for themselves. So we made 2manybooks.
What started as a way to protect our collection became a place to catalog books, discover other people's questionable obsessions, and find more things you absolutely don't need. Because apparently the solution to being afraid of losing everything was finding even more things to lose.
Hopefully you'll never need a wildfire to appreciate knowing what you own.
The founders.
2manybooks was founded by Philip Cronerud and Lisa Ziven in Los Angeles. We're designers, makers, and collectors. We care about typography, printing, paper, and all the other things normal people apparently don't think about.
We started this because we couldn't find exactly what we wanted. Which is a pretty exhausting reason to start anything. But here we are. Still collecting. Still building. Still running out of shelves.
Prices.
Books are worth whatever someone is willing to pay for them. Which is sometimes a lot and sometimes deeply upsetting. We show historical sales, listings, and estimated values to give you some idea. It's not an appraisal. We're not buying your books. We're just showing you what happened.
A little more.
2manybooks is free. Pro gives you more tools. Patron gives you those tools and a badge that tells everyone you're financially supporting this questionable endeavor. We appreciate it. Against our better judgment.
Read the Terms of Service if you enjoy that sort of thing.
Questions, complaints, or obscure books we should know about? mail@2manybooks.com