| |
|
When we lived in Madison, I only ever read books from the library. It was great, because you could check out a stack of the books and have them for the whole semester; and of course they had everything.
Despite being impressive edifices, the libraries here pretty much stink; the collections are terrible, it's really a shame. But even so, I can't be bothered to trek back and forth every two weeks or read on someone else's schedule. I think that makes me very unfit to live under any sort of collective system.
So book costs have skyrocketed. I buy almost all my lit. books at Myopic Books, an xlnt used bookstore down the street from my house. Our evening walks pause at Myopic, and then resume home with half a dozen paperbacks.
If there's a particular new book that I'm looking for, I go to the Barnes & Noble near the movie theater we like. But I have to really want the book, because new book prices are shockingly expensive to me.
I don't buy from Amazon. I might if I worked in an office & could have to books delivered there, but otherwise I, er, am sort of afraid of deliverymen at home. But also I like to look through books, feel the pages and so forth, and it seems very much like cheating to use the neighborhood bookstore in this way & then give Amazon my money, even though they're cheaper sometimes.
I also refuse to buy at Border's, for non-rational reasons as I'm sure that everything that's wrong with Border's is the same at Barnes & Noble. But when I was looking for the Iliad, they had it filed under History! Is that right? At B&N at least it was under Poetry. But dammit, both of them should have a Classics section. With a chair so I can sit and read.
I don't buy from very many independent new booksellers, but that's mostly because they're not close to my house. |
|
|
There's still a couple around though, and if I've got cash in hand I'll stop by and pick up a couple of books.