• Welcome to BookAndReader!

    We LOVE books and hope you'll join us in sharing your favorites and experiences along with your love of reading with our community. Registering for our site is free and easy, just CLICK HERE!

    Already a member and forgot your password? Click here.

Do you buy, borrow or take out from the library?

Do you buy your books or borrow them from the library?

  • Buy from the Bookstore

    Votes: 29 39.7%

  • Borrow from the Library

    Votes: 13 17.8%

  • Both

    Votes: 31 42.5%
  • Total voters
    73
Syracusefan

Syracusefan

New Member
Don't ask me why, but there is nothing better than sitting down and opening up a new book with that crisp feel to the pages & cracking the spine of the book. I have to buy my books. I can't borrow them with other people's coffee stains on them. I can't stand the yellowed worn pages from the library and being under a time limit in which to read. Yes, I spend a ton of money on books, but without people like me - you wouldn't have anyone to borrow books from :D

What do you all do?
 
Syracusefan said:
Don't ask me why, but there is nothing better than sitting down and opening up a new book with that crisp feel to the pages & cracking the spine of the book. I have to buy my books. I can't borrow them with other people's coffee stains on them. I can't stand the yellowed worn pages from the library and being under a time limit in which to read. Yes, I spend a ton of money on books, but without people like me - you wouldn't have anyone to borrow books from :D

What do you all do?
Click to expand...

Approximately 90% of the books I've read are my own books! That means that I only borrow 10% of the books I've read from libraries! I enjoy going to bookstore more than I do going to libraries. Books in library are old and that's why I don't like them. Plus, I like to collect books and put them onto my book shelves in my home library. When I look at all the books I've bought and read, I feel like I have accomplished something great--books! :)
 
I do both. If I'm not sure if I'll like a book, or if it's too expensive, then I'll borrow it. If I like it, and think that I will re-read it later, then I buy it. :D
 
I became addicted to the library at a young age, so old used books never bothered me - as long as there were thousands of them and I could read and/or borrow them. That was heaven! And now my home collection grows and I hardly ever buy a new book. I go to library sales, yard sales, used bookstores. You never know what youll find and I always leave happy. Just last month I went to a Library sale -$2.00 for all the books you could fit in a bag. I found some excellent reads - about 30 books in all! They were all in fair to very good condition. I also found an autographed copy of a book for .25 at another library and a set of Poe hardcovers sitting on top of someones trash!- Imagine! I also started taking my daughter to the library when she was 2. She was thrilled at the idea of "taking stories home" and some of the best books she found were old well-loved copies. She is a constant reader still, and the school library is always sending reminder notes home about books she has overdue.
I think if I had limited myself or my daughter to new books, we'd have missed out on a lot.

If I buy a new book, its usually a reference book or a gift for someone, or something from a clearance rack. :cool:
 
I buy my books, whether it from a used book shop, a new book shop, a fund-raising book sale or a yard sale! Even the tip shop. I like having my books on hand. I cannot get them from a library because returning them would be like returning a puppy to the Dog's Home.

If I am not sure about a book... I am lucky enough to be in a book group and I ask if any of them have a copy and generally, I am lucky. Also, there's Ebay.
 
I Library. I use the internet to see if they have what I want, and at which branch. I hate to spend money on a book if I can get it for free.

We get three weeks per book in our area, and you can re-sign for 3 more before they make you turn in the book to give others a chance. If I can't finish a book in 6 weeks the book must not be very good.
 
I basically live at the library. I know the staff rather well and that helps me "influence" them in which books to order for me and my family.
 
Sell Sword said:
I basically live at the library. I know the staff rather well and that helps me "influence" them in which books to order for me and my family.
Click to expand...
That's very cool social engineering. :)

"So Mr. Sword, what's good?"
"I'm not sure the M's been filled out properly... have we got all the Mievilles and Melvilles? Weirdos and whales, you know. And don't forget Muppets..."

ds
 
I buy when I have money to spend, and get them from the library. If I want a book the library doesn't have, or I think I'll have to wait a long, long time, I'll buy it. Sometimes my best friend will mail me a book she's read, and I can either keep it or pass it on.

I agree though, there's nothing like the smell of a brand new book and cracking open that spine!
 
Syracusefan said:
Don't ask me why, but there is nothing better than sitting down and opening up a new book with that crisp feel to the pages & cracking the spine of the book. I have to buy my books. I can't borrow them with other people's coffee stains on them. I can't stand the yellowed worn pages from the library and being under a time limit in which to read. Yes, I spend a ton of money on books, but without people like me - you wouldn't have anyone to borrow books from :D
Click to expand...

I agree entirely with that (apart from the lending the books out bit!) I like to own my books, and I like them to be clean, with no bent pages or horrible tobacco smells etc. I was quite put out, when reading Wolves of the Calla, to find that despite all my care, the spine became creased. :mad: But then I am rather obsessive-compulsive when it comes to books. :eek:

I used to use the library when I was a child, but when I became a teenager my crappy library didn't have the books I wanted to read, so I started buying them. I have about four second-hand books in my whole collection of thousands, but I don't particularly like used books and would much rather have new.
 
I mostly do the library. When I do buy books I shop Daedalus or Hamilton and get them new super-cheap, or I visit a second hand shop. I'm lucky and I know it, in that my local library system is excellent and even though my branch is small, they can and will get me just about any book I want. I go every week, sometimes as much as three times in a week. The librarian will even ask me what books I want them to get when it comes to book buying time for them. :D I'm not picky about the condition of the books I read, as long as the pages aren't stuck together or falling out, it's fine by me. I won't damage a book and I keep my own books nice.
 
i don't care, actually!! i read everything from library, over borrowed to super new!!
but mostly i'm too lazy to go to second hand shops or libraries only to discover that they don't have the book i lusting after for a few weeks, so i go and buy them!! i even have the same book in two languages!!
mostly my friends and family borrow books from me and years later i find out that i will never see this book again, because they kept it!! Bastards!! :D
 
I'm not buying any at the moment because I'd only have to ship them home eventually. But I love my town's library - it overlooks the river and has these huge windows.

I also *love* second hand books, and I don't like borrowing books from others. Second hand books already have the spine cracked and I don't feel guilty pulling them open, cracking the spine or shoving them in my bag when I go out. Plus, it saves so much money, and second hand book stores have such a lovely musty smell to them.

Borrowing books is like looking wearing someone else's clothes. You don't want to get them dirty, you don't want to crease them, etc etc. Unless they lend you a daggy old sweater, in which case you can treat it any way you want. I have one friend who is meticulous with his books, they are always like new, without even a cracked spine! I want to read them, and he's fine lending them, but I anguish over where I can read them. It's reading, I shouldn't have to do that!!

My mother is a librarian, so growing up I used to go with her on book purchasing expeditions. It was *awesome*. She'd have her little list ad agenda of things she needed to get, but I could usually slip in a few suggestions. Some of these 'suggestions' spent a bit of time in 'processing' before they made it to the shelves. Even now when I go visit there's always books in 'processing' lying around the place. It's great!!
 
I'm definitely a user of my local public library.. and being an employee of that same library has absolutely nothing to do with it.. (Well.. it is nice not to have fines.. ;) )

I absolutely hate getting books for myself. Why should I buy a brand new copy and read it once, letting it collect dust for the rest of eternity on my bookshelf? I'd rather have someone else enjoy it as much as I did.

One thing that I think a lot of people don't realise, is that if the library doesn't have it, that they've got a certain amount of money set aside in their book-purchasing budget for patron requests. And usually that amount is quite large. Just go bug your local reference librarian if there's something you want. It might take a bit.. but you'll get it eventually.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top