READ ALSO: Captain Sir Tom Moore inspires Newbury's Ruth Saunders to walk a marathon for Thames Valley Air Ambulance. Bonhams Books & Manuscripts auctions offer the finest printed and manuscript material, ranging from early illuminated manuscripts and incunabula through natural history, medicine, literature, art, music, Americana, fine bindings and private press, and vernacular photography. We hold more than 20 auctions each year in London, Denmark, New York, New England, California and online. Our thematic auctions cover topics as diverse as the History of Science & Technology, Women Through History, Travel and Exploration, Surrealism and Napoleon. Bonhams also handles high-profile single-owner collections, which have included the Library of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg, The Estate of Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes, Wassenaar Zoo, and The Medical & Scientific Library of W. Bruce Fye. After trying various ideas, AwesomeBooks started selling books online. This model proved successful, allowing more and more books to be diverted from landfill. Today, we are a global retailer, processing over 250,000 books every day, with nothing going to waste. Books are either re-sold, donated via our literacy programs or pulped and turned into something new.

AwesomeBooks was born from a love for books: to not see books thrown away when they can still be read and their stories shared. We know that books have the power to educate and improve life outcomes. From an early stage, AwesomeBooks has supported education and literacy projects. Since 2005 we have funded reading programs in schools. In 2011 we started work with a foundation in Ghana that donates books to schools in the Ashante region. And in 2019 we formalised our program under our ‘Buy One-Give One’ scheme: for every book a reader buys from AwesomeBooks.com, we will donate a book to someone who needs it.In 2003 co-founders Mubin and Taskeen found charity shops throwing away books they could not sell. Bin after bin was getting filled with books in perfectly good condition. Books represented empowerment and education, full of wonderful stories fuelling the imagination. Bookworms themselves, the 2 co-founders set about finding a solution.

Bonhams Books & Manuscripts department has specialists covering the UK, Europe, the Americas, South Africa and Asia-Pacific.