Friday, April 2, 2010

How Do You Buy Books?

While in Waco recently, my husband and I managed to make time to go to Barnes and Noble.  You see, we live in a small town, where we have no real bookstores to speak of, so going to Barnes and Noble is a novelty we don't often indulge.  I spent time weaving up and down the long aisles of books, looking for historical fiction when I realized, of a sudden, that there was no historical fiction section.  If I was going to find a book, I was going to have to search through hundreds of books in the "Fiction" section.  What a pain!  Yet, I found the experience exhilirating!

As I searched down the aisles, caressing the spines of every book on the third shelf up from the floor, I found something great!  I found The Meaning of Night by Michael Cox, a historical fiction, and when I pulled it from the shelf I felt as though I'd found a buried treasure.  I read the back cover, showed it to my husband, who was at this point following me around like a puppy, and when we agreed that it sounded like something I'd be interested in reading, I went back to searching around.  Unfortunately, by that time it was time to go.  We had plans with friends, plans for which we were already late because I was taking too long.  I did manage to squeeze in a little extra time, he didn't give me too much trouble as I searched around in the bargain books section for anything that might strike my fancy -- I did fine one, The Gemstone Handbook, which I now wish I'd gotten as I feel like it could be a fantastic resource.

Anyway, as we were walking out the door, I found the book I'd been looking for sitting on a table with other new releases.  When I pointed it out to my husband, he offered to get it for me, but I rejected it in a huff of annoyance that he was dragging me out of my beloved Barnes and Noble.  Next time, I'm going to try to get to Books A Million.  But, being in a bookstore at all, rather than just Hastings, which is all we have here, has gotten me to thinking about how we as a society buy books.  Given that we do live in a small town, I buy a lot of books online, usually from Amazon.  I research books by their ratings and on GoodReads and see what others thing before I put out the $15 for a new book, but this isn't how it's always been.  What happened to the days when we just went to Barnes and Noble and picked up books off the shelf?  What happened to picking the books we buy by what sounds interesting and giving it an honest shot, regardless of what other people think?

We're losing the tactile experience of literature.  Slowly, we're losing the physicality related with books, the sensual experience of satin pages beneath our fingers, the inviting scent of a new book, the crispness of a spine that resists giving beneath the grasp of an exuberant reader.  I love everything about books, and yet it's all being lost.  The e-book is replacing actual books, e-readers are replacing bookshelves, and online book clearinghouses, like Amazon, are slowly draining the life out of brick and mortar bookstores.  And we can argue that e-books are better for the environment, or that they're more convenient, but they're stealing away the experience of the book and it makes me a little sad.  There are future generations, people 100 years from now, who may only be able to find books in used bookstores and antique shops.

Still, for people in rural areas, websites like Amazon make literature accessible and for that I can't complain, especially since I'm one of those people a lot of the time.   Just today I had to make myself go into town to Hastings to look for a book I've been wanting, rather than ordering it on Amazon, which was my first inclination.  For now, people continue to buy books, despite such inventions as the Kindle and the Nook (which I checked out at Barnes and Noble and was not impressed with) and it seems that book lovers and academics are winning out, despite ridiculous claims that books are an outdated technology.

So tell me, how do you buy your books?

5 comments:

  1. paperbackswap.com = awesomesauce.. if you havn't tried it yet I think you will like it

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  2. Thanks for the link, John. I've never tried it, but there's one very good reason for that... I cannot let go of books, try though I might. I'm a total book hoarder! Some day, someone's going to have to dig me out of my self-created book cave, and it's going to be awesome. So, it's the swap part that makes me cringe. If I could get books, without giving them up, I'd do it, but that defeats the point. LOL.

    <3 John, thanks again! Now, if I sign up and you want to mail me books, feel free, I'll send you my address. Ha! ;)

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  3. Well there is another wonderful thing about that site, you can purchase a book credit for like $3.50 or something near, which is still a heck of a lot cheaper than buying new... I have a really hard time giving up my books too.

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  4. I buy books from friends, yard sales, thrift stores or used book stores. Sometimes if I want a specific book, I get it from half.com. Occasionally I buy books brand new or from the library, but not often.

    I considered paperbackswap but realized I could get books cheaper at yard sales and thrift stores than through the price of shipping from trading books.

    I like the convenience of ebooks -- less to carry around with you! But I still love old fashioned books. The other day I was at my bookshelf and picked up a couple of books from the 70s and they have a very distinctive smell to them that newer books are lacking. It was like the smell of my childhood spent in the library!!

    When I'm done with books I give them to friends, donate them or sell them to the used book store in town. I rarely keep books unless they are reference books of some kind.

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  5. I like the blog, but could not find how to subscribe to obtain the updates by email.

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