Stardew Valley - Books

Books are read once for a permanent benefit, from skill experience to new abilities. The bookseller visits the valley with the rarer ones.

Overview

Books are read the way food is eaten. One is highlighted in the top row of the bag, used, and gone, and what it leaves behind is permanent. Some teach a skill and some change a rule, but none of them wear off, which makes this the only branch in the valley where a single afternoon's shopping improves every day that follows.

The branch splits cleanly in two. Power books grant an ability the first time they are read, and that ability is then listed on the special items tab of the player menu with a small thumbs-up marking the book as read. Skill books hand over a lump of experience instead, and they can be read again and again for the same lump. Reading all nineteen power books once earns an achievement, so the first copy of each is worth more than any amount of gold.

A second reading of a power book is not wasted either. Most of them give experience in the skill they relate to, which turns a duplicate into the same thing a skill book is. Once a farm has mastered a skill, that experience is redirected into mastery points instead, so a stack of spare books remains useful to the very end of a run.

In a shared farm each book works only for whoever reads it, so a household that wants the same movement speed needs a copy each. That is worth planning around, because the fastest books are also among the most expensive.

Groups

The power books fall into natural clusters. Three of them are about getting around: two parts of a running manual that stack with each other, and a third that removes most of the drag of walking through grass and crops. A fourth makes the horse faster, and all four together change how a day feels more than anything else in the branch.

A second cluster is about the mines and fighting. One grants a point of defence outright. One makes monsters drop double loot now and then. One halves the sting of a bomb, and one cuts the fee the Adventurer's Guild charges to return lost gear.

A third cluster is about the sea and the soil. One puts roe into fishing treasure chests. One makes crab pots pay twice sometimes. One makes felled trees give double wood, one makes weeds give Mixed Seeds more often, one makes rubbish bins more generous, and one puts a chance of a diamond into every stone broken by hand.

The remaining power books are conveniences rather than powers. One reveals the value of everything in the bag. One opens Marnie's shop when Marnie is out. One raises friendship gain across the whole town, one raises the chance of a Mystery Box appearing, and one trebles what artifacts fetch.

The skill books are simpler. There is one for each of the five skills, one that pays into all five at once, and a cookbook that teaches every television recipe the farm has yet to see.

Best

If only one book can be afforded, buy the Price Catalogue. It is far and away the cheapest on the shelf and it puts a value on every item in the bag, which quietly improves every selling decision for the rest of the run.

After that, the two parts of the running manual are the best gold ever spent in the valley, because walking is what a farming day is mostly made of. The grass and crop book belongs in the same breath, since a large field is otherwise a swamp to cross. The horse book is the natural fourth, and all four stack.

For a farm heading underground, the defence book is the pick, because a flat point of defence applies to every hit taken for the rest of the game and costs nothing to maintain. The bomb manual is the best companion to it for anyone who clears the Skull Cavern with explosives.

The appraisal guide is the one book that changes a whole branch of the economy, since it trebles what every artifact sells for and makes a trove worth opening for money rather than for the Museum. Marnie's catalogue is the best convenience book, because the ranch keeps awkward hours and is usually shut on the evening the farm wants hay.

The cookbook is the completionist's pick and a genuine shortcut, since it teaches every television recipe at once and removes the need to catch each broadcast on its day.

Locations

Marcello the bookseller is the main supply. He arrives twice a season on dates marked on the calendar with a balloon, stands across the river north of JojaMart, and stays open from early morning until two in the morning. His shelves grow with the farm: the cheaper books are there from the start, and the long list of twenty-thousand-gold power books appears in the third year.

Almost every power book can also be found rather than bought, and finding one is usually quicker than saving for it. One sits in a box in the back room of the Adventurer's Guild behind a door that opens after a thousand monsters. One is in the gold rubbish bin reached through a gap in the fence between the blacksmith and JojaMart. The Dwarf sells one for gold and his counterpart in the Volcano Dungeon sells another for a handful of diamonds. The raccoon pays one out for his second errand, and the squid festival hands another over at its top tier. Chopping trees, slaying monsters, cracking Artifact Troves, digging artifact spots, opening Mystery Boxes and reeling in treasure chests each drop their own book.

Two books stand apart. Marnie sells her catalogue herself from the second year, and the cookbook only reaches the bookseller's shelves once a hundred Golden Walnuts have been handed over on the island.

The five skill books are the common currency of the branch. They turn up in Mystery Boxes, in fishing treasure chests, in artifact spots, by shaking and chopping trees, from monsters and crates underground, from the prize machine in Lewis's house and on the travelling waggon, which means a farm accumulates them without trying.

Strategy

Read a skill book at the right moment rather than the moment it is found. A lump of experience is worth most when it tips a skill over a level and least when it lands halfway through one, and it is worth nothing in gold terms if the skill was going to level that week anyway.

Read each power book once as soon as it is in hand, and only then start thinking about duplicates. The achievement needs one reading of each, the ability is permanent, and the book cannot be lost once it has been used.

Check the calendar at the start of every season and plan around the balloons. The bookseller comes twice and then leaves, and a farm that misses both visits waits a quarter of a year for the next chance.

Hunt the free copies before saving for the paid ones. A book pulled out of a trove, a trash can or a guild cupboard costs an afternoon, while the same book on the shelf costs the price of a Greenhouse's worth of seed.

Notes

Spare books are a currency of their own at the bookseller's stall. He will trade a duplicate for one of a short list of goods, which includes Monster Musk, Artifact Troves, good bait and a few cooked dishes, and he only accepts books the farm has already read.

Penny loves every book in the branch, which makes a spare copy the most reliable gift in the valley for her and a sensible use for the fifth almanac in the chest.

The Lost Books found while digging behave quite differently. They go straight into the library shelves rather than into the bag, they are read by examining the shelves, and they hold hints and small pieces of the valley's lore rather than powers. The final one in the sequence is a riddle whose answer points at three hidden statues in Pelican Town.

All Books

Every entry in this group, with its key details.

Name	Image	Price
Animal Catalogue		2000g
Bait And Bobber		500g
Book Of Stars		2500g
Book of Mysteries		3000g
Combat Quarterly		500g
Dwarvish Safety Manual		1000g
Friendship 101		3000g
Horse: The Book		1000g
Jack Be Nimble, Jack Be Thick		500g
Jewels Of The Sea		800g
Mapping Cave Systems		4000g
Mining Monthly		500g
Monster Compendium		2000g
Ol' Slitherlegs		1000g
Price Catalogue		1000g
Queen Of Sauce Cookbook		10000g
Raccoon Journal		1000g
Stardew Valley Almanac		500g
The Alleyway Buffet		3000g
The Art O' Crabbing		1000g
The Diamond Hunter		1000g
Treasure Appraisal Guide		500g
Way Of The Wind pt. 1		5000g
Way Of The Wind pt. 2		10000g
Woodcutter's Weekly		500g
Woody's Secret		500g