FIR Question #8

On Tuesdays, Katrina, our lovely hostess for Fall Into Reading, asks a question pertaining to something about reading.  Now I am fully aware that today is Wednesday.  I just am not getting my blogging act together lately but I like the questions.  So here we go a day late.  Katrina wants to know this week:

Where do you get the books you read?  Are you a faithful library patron?  Or maybe a bookstore junkie? Do you exchange books with friends or family members?


I will take my books where ever I can get them.  I'll take them new or used or borrowed from the library.  It just does not matter.  As long as I have books.

 Of course my favorite way is new.  I love the look and feel of new books.  I love the smell of them.  I love the thought of being the first one to crack that book open and go through the pages.  I usually get those new books from the local bookstores or from publisher's for review.  I've never bought off the internet.  I think mostly because I'm scared to even get started on that.  It would just be way too easy for me to get carried away.  There is something about making the effort to go to a bookstore that keeps the spending on new books somewhat in check.  Once you get me in the store, though, all bets are off and I have a hard time not walking out without at least one book.  I am very much appreciative of the publisher's review books and being able to pick and choose which ones I want to do.  It's been a real blessing over the last couple of years.  But again I have to show restraint in order to be able to read those books by the assigned date and that is hard.  :v)

Perusing the local library is something I do on a regular basis.  I've loved the library since I was a kid and you will find me there at least every few weeks.  Again I have to show restraint there as I tend to take out way more than I can read in the alloted three weeks time.  I take full advantage of their interlibrary loans and being able to put books on hold over the internet.  In fact, when I go through everyone's reading lists, I make my own list of books I'd like to read and start putting them on hold at the library.  The church library also gets my patronage.

While at the library I always check out their "Booktique" where you can purchase used books for under $4. You never know what treasure can be found there for cheap.   I've gotten my daughter a whole series of about 10 books there for about $2 apiece when they are about $35 -$40 each in the store new.  Once in awhile I go their biannual sale.

Now I have to come out and admit, I don't like loaning the books I own.  There I said it.  But the books that I hang onto are favorites and ones I want to keep because the stories have meant something to me or I really liked them and I feel at sometime I will reread.  I have had issues in the past where I have not gotten books back and months later have had to ask for them back.  (I hate having to ask for them back).  There's even been times where I've found out the person I loaned them to has loaned them to others and has no idea where they've gone. Or they've come back water or food stained or the spines ruined.   That has really bothered me.  So I figure if I can't loan it without releasing it in my mind as if I've given it away, then I just don't loan it.  I do have one friend whom I loan to who understands that and feels the same way, and she has been very faithful to read the books in a decent amount of time and get them back to me in the same shape I gave them to her.  My sister is the same. On the same token, I don't ask to borrow people's books.  So there, now my selfish secret is out.

So where do you guys get your books?