The Drunken Lizard Pub

I played eschalon 2 over a year ago. I had a lot of fun figuring out what abilities to start with and which ones to buy, and I remember there were skill books but I am having trouble finding a place on the web that lists their locations in the game.

I thought i saw something like that on these boards but "location" and "book" bring a ton of results.

are the book locations random? if not, does someone know where I can find the books?

Most book locations are random with certain merchants in Eastwillow and Port Kuudad usually having the same ones appearing more often if you check in every week. Port Kuudad tends to have ones for elemental and divine skills and the thief ones. Eastwillow is some armor and piercing weapons.

Port K shops also often have the Merchant book, alchemy book, cartography book, and foraging book.

Some books are extremely rare. I believe I have seen the dodge training book and lore training book only once during my games. I have never seen the Hide in Shadows training book.

I'm pretty sure there's no different rarities for different books. You probably just got unlucky.