Search Tips

Understanding the way the AbeBooks search engine works can help you find the exact book you are looking for.

In general, the more information you enter into the search fields the fewer matches you will receive. More is not necessarily better. The most important thing to remember about entering your search criteria is that AbeBooks searches for books that match all the words you enter. In order to maximize your chances of a match, you should enter a minimum amount of information. You can always refine your search further if you are receiving too many matches. The key is to start small.

More is not always better - our system searches for books matching all the words you enter. Start with fewer search terms and add more to further refine the results.
Match totals shown are only an estimate.
Keywords are created by the individual booksellers offering the books and not by AbeBooks.
The accuracy of a search criteria depends upon the following limiting factors:

AbeBooks is multilingual, so attributes are searched in multiple languages.
Conditions are kept "loose" to be reasonably inclusive.
Typing errors in bookseller’s descriptions can cause a listing to be wrongly listed in your search results.

Spelling

Our search engine will only find books matching the exact spelling in your request. Review your entries for spelling and typing mistakes.
"Noise words" such as "the" and "a" are filtered out.

Plural Forms and Apostrophes

Searching for "mouse" will return results with "mice," and "John" will return results with "John's."

Our search engine treats apostrophes differently based on whether they appear near the end of a word or the beginning. This is best explained with examples:

Search for Handmaids returns Handmaids, Handmaid's.
Search for Handmaid's returns Handmaid's.
Search for O'Neill returns O'Neill.
Search for ONeill returns ONeill.

If you are searching for a term that includes an apostrophe, we recommend that you include it in your search.

Searching by Keyword

The Keyword field is used to enter search words that may relate to the book you are seeking. One of the most important things to remember about keywords is they are generated by the individual Booksellers and not by AbeBooks. It is up to the Bookseller to determine the keywords to be attached to the books. Occasionally books have no keywords attached to them.

Searching by Keyword will bring back large amounts of information as the Keyword field searches all other fields. When you search by keyword, the title, author and publisher fields, as well as the book description are searched for matches to the keyword.

For example: If you search by the keyword "Hemingway", the search results will come up with books by all authors named Hemingway as well as books where Hemingway is in the book's title. Books where Hemingway is the publisher, or is mentioned in the description of the book will also appear in the search results.

Searching by Price

You can limit your search for books to only those listed within a specific price range.

To search by Book Price, next to the "Price" field on the Book Search screen, enter the price range in the "Min" and "Max"' fields. Once you have specified the price range you wish to search, and any other search criteria, click on [Start Search].

Boolean Search

Boolean searches use operators to perform more specific queries. Using “and”, “or”, and “not” (Boolean operators) allows you to refine the search by adding or removing specific terms.

You can turn Boolean searching on or off using the radio buttons next to the “Boolean Search:” on the Advanced Search page.

The "tilde symbol" (~), can be used in place of "not", but Boolean searching must be turned on for this to work.

Boolean Searching Examples

If you're looking for a book with "Mouse" in the title, but not "Mice," enter "Mouse" (including the quotation marks) in the Advanced Search title field. Select the [Boolean Searching On] option and start your search.
If you'd like to find books with "John" in the title but not "John's" or "Johns," try your search with "John" (including quotation marks) and make sure the [Boolean Searching On] option button is selected.

You can also try narrowing your search results using other fields on Advanced Search, or by using the [Narrow Your Results] attributes on the right side of the search results page.

Sorting Search Results

You can sort your search results. At the top of the search results page you will see a "Sort by" pull-down menu. You can sort your search results by:

Newest, the newest books added to our database appearing first
Lowest Price, the books with the lowest price appearing first
Highest Price, the books with the highest price appearing first
Author A-Z, the books appearing in alphabetical order using the author's last name
Author Z-A, the books appearing in reverse alphabetical order using the author's last name
Title A-Z, the books appearing in alphabetical order based on the title
Title Z-A, the books appearing in reverse alphabetical order based on the title

From the pull-down menu, select the sort by option of your choice and click [Go].

Note:

You may also specify a results sort order when using the "Advanced Search" function. This option is available in the bottom section of the Advance Search screen.