Where do you get your books from, and what do you do with them when you have finished?

[lucyellensmum]

A comment on another thread, got me wondering about peoples attitudes to the books they read, with regards where they get them etc.

On the most part, i tend to get my books from second hand shops, i will occasionally buy new, but unless there is something i am waiting for i buy second hand. If i went to buy new i wouldnt be able to decide because of the cost, but second hand at about £1.50 ish, it doesnt matter too much if the book is shite. I used to keep all my books, but then got rid, now i tend to give them to charity shops or pass them on to friends.

Just wondered about everyone else?

I usually get second hand books too unless there's something new out that I really want. Covers from 50's/60's so much nicer than modern ones.

I can't get rid of them - even the really rubbish ones. It is a problem. How did you do it?

We have a book exchange at work - in the canteen. You take in any books you don't want, and choose some you do and leave money for charity - at least 20 pence per book. I love it as I find all sorts of books there.

I also love the book stall at the local village fete - I always find something. I keep the books I know I will re-read at some point and take the others to work to exchange.

I also buy books in airports - when I am on business, I always run out of reading material sooner than I expect.

I use this www.greenmetropolis.com

I buy second hand and is asda. And I keep all my books, love books!

I normally get books from library. If there is something specific or new I want then I reserve it online which costs £1.

More recently I have been borrowing books from friends and am enjoying the MN Second Chapter book swap.

I used to get all mine from 'world books' book club, but since they always ignore me telling them I didn;t want 'editors book choice', charged me to send it back, and then even charged me for the book culminating in arguements cos I had indeed sent it back, I don't anymore!

I now get from waterstones/tesco's/asda/borders, or second hand up at the ballet school as they do a book swap thingy......not that I can get many as I seem to have bought most of them already.

I keep 95% of my books as I love to re-read them, especially ones by the authors I like and collect.

tend to only hand on ones I cannot get into, or that I know I would never read again. (which isn;t many)

I buy from Amazon as am not in the UK, and they charge VAT at 21% on books here!

I keep most of mine...when we moved 18 months ago, we had more book boxes than anything else, and have only just put enough shelving to unpack them all. I am going to have a weed through them and donate them to an organisation that wants them, or maybe for a second hand book stall at DSs school.

Charity shops
Friends
Supermarket
Play.com
From Penguin website as SIl can get discount for us

I try not to pay full price for them!Afterwards I pass them on or send them t o the charity shop.

The library

I used to buy but I have so many books now that it's become ridiculous! Despite trying to resell them on Amazon. So now I get books from my local library and you would be amazed too see how many new books they have. Sometimes they get new releases before WH Smith does!

Charity shops, mainly. But I buy new if I'm desperate to read something - mainly from Amazon but I like a good browse round a bookshop too. Second-hand from Amazon is good too.

Sometimes buy from the Book People, and I like browsing round remainder bookshops too - you never know what might end up in there. And the library. And supermarkets.

I even once found a knackered old copy of a Paul Theroux book on the stationery shelf in a newsagent. Someone must have left it in there. I offered them 10p for it!

So anywhere, really. Am slightly book-obsessive so I don't think a weekend goes by without me acquiring one from somewhere, and I always have an enormous to-read pile.

As for after they've been read: flat is stuffed to bursting with books so I have very strict criteria about which ones I keep these days. With fiction, I only allow myself to keep books I absolutely love - anything less than that and it's straight back to the charity shop.

I get my books from abebooks as its second hand and I can get bargains and out of print books there. Also Amazon, and smaller independent bookshops (in the hope to keep them alive).
When I'm finished with a book I put it on the shelf. Only if I have utterly hated a book and never want to see it again will I give it away, usually to Oxfam or the local library (if they want it).

I use Amazon and the library. I have to sort out and get rid of books when the shelves are too full and last time we moved I got rid of alot of books that I'd read three times but I really regret it as there is one I just feel like reading again and I'm going to have to get it from the library now!

I love abebooks too.

All over the place. I am very organised about my reading and have a notebook, a spreadsheet and a Facebook app full of books I want to read. (I know. I really am that sad.)

I don't use the library as much as I should, mainly because our library is closed for a major refurbishment (like, two years' worth...) and what they can stock in the little local ones is severely limited. Also they never have what I want to read. My library borrowing is confined to the 2 minutes while my kids are checking out their books: I scoot along the shelf that has the books facing outward - the library equivalent of the tables in Waterstones - and grab anything that I know is definitely on my list. But cyanarasamba makes a good point about it actually being quite cheap to reserve - I just baulk at the idea of spending money in a library that's not on "retired from stock" books.

Had a bit of an Amazon spree recently as I got a sizeable Amazon voucher as my leaving present from my last job. Now all gone sadly

I get an employee discount at work. Usually it doesn't match up to Amazon but there is something horribly addictive about scooping the lovely books off the shelves...

Keep meaning to look at ReadItSwapIt and also BookMooch as well. I'm on GreenMetropolis but again, can never get copies of the books I want off it.

I used to get all of mine from charity shops or new from Amazon, but now they come almost entirely from Bookmooch. When I have finished if I dont want to keep it I just relist it and get points to spend on another book.

I currently have ten bookcases full and am using Bookmooch to skim them down a bit, there are lots there that are definitely not keepers. It costs a bit to send out the books but I would rather they went to someone who really wanted them.

I occasionally have the odd voucher for Amazon for doing surveys but I use that to buy presents for other people. It doesnt seem right to order brand new books when the paper industry is such a major polluter/deforester.

www.readitswapit.com

Amazon second hand and Waterstones when I get into the big metropolis (our local town), classics and series I keep as would like to encourage DD to read them (when she is older) easy reads get put in guests rooms, doesn't matter if they start reading and then take them away with them, when I get too many a friend has a book shelf in her cafe and I take them down to her, people donate to charity.

Lucyellensmum, sorry, had to post.

When I read your thread title in active convos, I read it as 'where did you get your looks from and what do you do with them when you have finished?'

I read it about 3 times before I realised it was about books not looks, and had already got my answer: I got them from my mum and you're right, I have finished with them, they just went away and I'm now just old and haggered (?sp).

Sorry to lower the tone on an otherwise very sensible thread.

But since I'm here, I'll keep looking because I really don't know what to do with the hundreds of books dh has bought new over the years that we no longer have space for.

I get mine from the library, from Amazon, from the Book People, from the local charity shop, from ebay, from play.com, from Green Metropolis, from our local independent bookshop, anywhere and everywhere really.

I used to sell on Green Metropolis but ended up with boxes and boxes of books sitting round, so have now donated those to charity. We still have literally hundreds of books, too many to fit on the shelves, and the whole of one wall of the dining room is book shelves.

I much prefer books to telly.

I'm really lucky as I'm usually given books 2nd hand from my sister. She gets thru stacks of them (so much quicker than me) & she passes me a subset of the ones she's finished with - just the good ones! :-)

pmsl kinki

Just started using readitswapit It's a great site, although I can't keep up the the fast pace and have now put all my books 'on holiday'

Very encouraging to hear good things of ReadItSwapIt and BookMooch. Shall bear in mind when I have worked my way through the current backlog... I finally bit the bullet and did a proper budget last week and now know I really do spend WAY too much on books

I rescue things from library sales too but find them a bit depressing. Either there's nothing I want to buy, or there's tonnes and the thought of the depletion of library stock and ensuing detriment to the nation's kultchA makes me v despondent. A lose-lose situation.

I get mine from all over - Amazon, bookshops, jumble sales, library sell-offs, borrow books from libraries.

I keep the books I really love or those I've bought new (even the ones I can't raad since I may go back to them) and donate old books or books I've 'moved on' from to charity. I started on Bookcrossing but I never really got started on it.