Oct 21 2008
Book buying
So …. from where do you buy/get your books? What about when you were a teenager or emerging adult (18 - 25)? Were you more or less likely to actually go to a bookstore then than you are now? If you have teenagers/emerging adults at home, where do they get their books? And how do they choose them?
Any and all responses would be most welcome … I’m interested - and, of course, I’m collecting data for my research project(s), the first of which will deal with fiction for adolescents and emerging adults.
I am particularly interested in the question of how teens/emerging adults decide what books they want to read, and especially whether they use the Internet to research books or authors.
I wasn’t typical, I guess, but I bought most of my stuff through garage sales. I was BROKE–no allowance, just what money I could get babysitting–but I’d tag along with my aunts and grandmother all summer, when they were roaming through people’s yards looking for their own stuff, and I’d pick up a bunch of books for 25 cents, lots of classics, lots of old YA stuff. Mostly classics.
I also bought hardbound stuff from the International Collectors library–a mail-in sort of company that had classic novels all bound nicely. That’s where I got Phantom of the Opera, etc.
Now (since I have yet to grow up), I tend to ransack library sales, but I also search Amazon, etc. If I find a book or a series of books I like, I look for other books by the author. But I also go to thrift stores, used book stores, etc., anywhere I can get a book cheap. I buy very little new–except Harry Potter books, or books I desperately want to have in my library, and can’t find any other way.
Amazon.com is my bitch. Like shakespeare (what a shocker) I used my own money to buy books and I had a lot of them. I, of course, have more now. I’ve bought from e-bay (competing collections), used bookstores (especially looking for Georgette Heyer novels) and I buy (A LOT) from Amazon.com.
I like Amazon too (.ca though, not .com)… one of the bestest things about going back to school and taking English is that I can justify buying a whole bunch more books … they’re all either required or research