I’ve asked, in the past, about whether you more often buy your books, or get them from libraries. What I want to know today, is, WHY BUY?
Even if you are a die-hard fan of the public library system, I’m betting you have at least ONE permanent resident of your bookshelves in your house. I’m betting that no real book-lover can go through life without owning at least one book. So … why that one? What made you buy the books that you actually own, even though your usual preference is to borrow and return them?
If you usually buy your books, tell me why. Why buy instead of borrow? Why shell out your hard-earned dollars for something you could get for free?
My house is full of books — as anyone who knows me can attest; BUT, I have definitely curt-tailed my book buying over the years. I used to mostly buy books. Now, I first look to see if my library has a book I want. If they don’t, I look to pbs or bookmooch. If I can’t get it from either place, I’ll consider buying it.
I also used to keep all my books. When I moved, I realized I couldn’t do that anymore. It wasn’t fair to make my husband and sons move the amount of books a small library might have. I also much prefer trade paperbacks to hardbacks. Now, when I’m finished with a book, I usually put it on pbs or bookmooch if it’s wishlisted, and if not I’ll sometimes do a giveaway or take it to goodwill.
I reserve buying new for those books that I have a 90% certainty that I will like, and that I know I’ll want to keep. For example, some recent purchases have been:
And I only bought the Annotated Dracula after I’d already listened to the audio and knew that I would want to re-read it some day with the annotations. Marilynne Robinson and Neil Gaiman are two authors that I love so I was confident I would enjoy these purchases.
I still have A LOT of books in my house, but I’ve been smarter with my money about acquiring them.
