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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
If I want to get a bunch of books to look through, I'll use the library, but I usually do lots of research and read the first few pages of a book before deciding to read it. At that point, I'll either order it used (but only in GOOD condition) or I'll buy it from the bookstore. It's just not as enjoyable for me to read a library book as it is to read my very own book. I also borrow from friends if they have good reccommendations or have a book I really want to read.
 
Buy vs. Borrow

I feel like I'm the only person out there who gets excited enough to buy a book then puts it back on the shelf where she/he found it because she's/he's afraid it'll turn out to be an awful read. I end up waiting for the book to become available at the library to pick it up or until I eventually see it in a used bookstore at a very discounted price. Then I'll feel okay about buying it.

Does anyone else do this?
 
I like to possess the book

but I usually only possess temporarily. I buy books at Friends of Library book sales, on eBay, through Half and Amazon. Almost always used. I like to have a shelf of prospects, books I intend to read. I keep a similar mini-shelf for my husband. Our tastes overlap (only).

Then when the book has been read, I perform merciful triage. Most go back to the Friends of the Library so they can circulate again, with a small profit to the library.

I do a lot of reading for courses I teach and those need to stand by until the course is over.
 
I go with "buy" and if the books are book, keep them or gift them to someone else. If it's a Stephen King book, then I send it to Eyezonme who is a HUGE King fan. The guy was pestering me forever and a day about Lisey's Story and how he thought it was a breakthrough novel for our times.;) :p :D
 
I borrow the majority of books that I read basically because I read so many. It would cost me a small fortune to buy them all, not to mention store them. However, now that certain supermarkets sell chart paperbacks for a mere £3.50-ish I have started to buy more especially if they are written by favourite authors of mine. Other than that the only books I buy are from second hand shops, or new editions to a series of books that I may be collecting.
 
Since we're a single-income family with several bibliophiles in residence, we've had to learn to curtail our book purchases somehow. We also homeschool, which is really just another way to justify our book-aquiring habits..So, what we do is use interlibrary loan for most of our needs. I use it to screen books we might want to purchase for reference, and for books we'd only want to read once. For school, this has saved us thousands of dollars. Of course, we're still buying books, but I hope we're becoming better stewards of our resources.
 
I like to own the books that I read and I love to get used books. A woman I know was having a moving sale a couple of days ago and I found Immortality by Milan Kundera and The Secret Life of Bees there. She let me have them for $1 each. So, that's my favorite way to get books, though I also order them used online, or buy them new in the store if I just HAVE TO have a book right away, or I borrow from the library. I don't use the library that often because I always forget to bring books back on time.
 
I usually buy my books. Better to keep a copy than to check it out from the library again and again. Lately, however, I've been using the library since I want to save as much money as I can for school in the fall. That's not to say I haven't completely abandoned the bookstore; I just haven't been there as much. So it's been the library for me.
 
I think if I've got to the point where I'm excited about the book then I would buy it so I could read it straight away, although I think the library where I live get new books quite quickly, you just have to reserve them in advance.
 
SFG75 said:
If it's a Stephen King book, then I send it to Eyezonme who is a HUGE King fan. The guy was pestering me forever and a day about Lisey's Story and how he thought it was a breakthrough novel for our times.;) :p :D
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Cheeky monkey :)

I usually buy, only because our local library is a bit lacklustre and I'm too impatient for inter-library borrowing. That said, I rarely buy books new. I have a couple of second-hand shops in neighbouring towns that are quite good, and if they don't have what i want there's always eBay, where I've bought a few Kings and Brysons quite cheaply.
 
All the talk about Ebay makes me nervous. I've close friends who've had a bit of trouble with Ebay, so I'm a little put-off by the prospect of using it. Is it really all it's cracked up to be? It seems like it'd be a wonderful place to get secondhand books.
 
AquaBlue said:
eBay is grand! But always be aware of the sellers history prior to purchase. ;)
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And be sure to know your prices and watch the shipping and handling fees! I've had better luck with half.com and amazon used..I like to use www.cheapbooks.com for comparison shopping. Oh, and Walmart.com has good prices and cheap shipping if you need a brand new copy.
 
I always buy, though usually from a second-had store, but sometimes even from Borders. I always intend to either re-read every book I have or to give them away. I haven't used a library since high school!
 
I tend to buy 60% of my books and borrow the other 40%. It doesn't cost that much because I go to places like Half Price Books and all the other local used bookstores. I also receive many gift cards to Borders and Barnes & Noble for my birthday and Christmas because my family knows it's the easiest way to please me. The odd thing is, I usually read more of the books that I borrow. There's actually a set time limit for when I have to return them. So they don't lay around my house for weeks/months/years before they get read. Seriously, I have a copy of Firebringer by David Clement-Davies that I bought 5 years ago and have yet to read :p
 
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