Browsing Offline is Better! (Where do you buy your books?)

Member Name: kensplace

Product:	Where do you buy your books?
Date:	16/11/00 (113 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Prefer to view before purchase

Disadvantages: Online can be cheaper sometimes

In short, I prefer to go to a real shop for my book purchases, online book buying is something I am not too keen on, but have nothing against on line purchases in general.

I purchase my books from a wide variety of places, often I just get them from the library, but when I do buy its from one of the places I cover below.

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Good Old fashioned Bookshops
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These are usually great, they range from pokey little shops, to large professional stores, but they all have one thing in common, a love for books.

I find that most good bookshops will order books in for you, if they dont have them in stock already.

Each bookshop tends to be different from the next, so you may need to visit a few to find your favourite.

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Library
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Libraries often sell of old books, or books that are no longer popular, or are "out of date". I have found some great bargains in libraries, and although most of the books that are sold, are not my cup of tea, if you keep looking long enough and hard enough a little treasure will pop up from time to time.
Theres also the added advantage that you can
get some books out of the library to read for free if theres nothing to buy!

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Second Hand Shops/ Charity Shops
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These are a brilliant place to find books at a (usually) very reasonable price, the range is very diverse and I enjoy the feeling of finding a bargain read, or stumbling across a author I have not heard of and discovering yet another range of books I want to read!


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Supermarkets / Department Stores
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These often sell books, but tend to have a very limited range, usually just the chart toppers, which althou
gh they sell well, they dont always appeal to me.

I have occasionally seen a book on offer at the supermarket and been tempted to purchase, sometimes I have, they are ok for impulse buys.


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WHSmiths
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Oddly I seem to buy many books from WHsmiths,
not as many now (not working currently) but
when I was travelling to work I used to love reading on the train, so I would pop into Smiths when I was waiting for the train to arrive (they are often delayed, we have the wrong types of leaves and garden sheds on our tracks up here.).

They tend to have a good range of books, but it will depend on the size of your local store as to the overall size of book stock that they carry.

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Amazon
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Despite being a very early affiliate of Amazon, even before it had a .co.uk, I have never actually purchased anything from them!

I will be purchasing Buffy Season 1 video Box set from them when my DooYoo miles arrive, but as far as books go, I have never
considered it.

Its not that I hve any thing against buying online, in fact I think its great, especially when dealing with a company as reliable as Amazon (my sister uses them a lot). No I just like to pick up a book, flick through it, check the print size, the paper quality, the overall feel of the book.

You cant do this online, but you can often save money online, but if we all did this, then the BookShops would go out of business, and my offline browsing would sadly have to become online browsing.

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BookClubs
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Advertisements for BookClubs are everywhere,
Im sick of them, they all follow the same format, and never get me to sign up.

Actually when I was a child I did sign up with a bookclub through the s
chool, and that was really good, but unlike the others this one was just a place to buy cheap books, no strings attached.

The bookclubs I have seen have rules such as you MUST purchase a certain number of books in the first year. Im not keen on being forced into purchases, so tend to stay well clear.

The initial offer may be good, but afterwards the books wont stay that cheap!!


Whichever method you choose to get your hands on a book, the most important thing is that you have done so, and enjoy your read!

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