Books : To Buy or to Borrow?

For those of you who don’t know it already. I’m a bookworm.  A first class, library card carrying, piles of books all over the house bookworm.  So is Shawn.  As you can now probably imagine, there are books all over our house.  In fact, at the moment, I cannot think of a single room in our house that is NOT stocked with some books.

Over the years, we have spent more money on books than I could possibly imagine or estimate anymore.  I buy them both used and new.  I know that there are now so many ways to have e-versions of books, but it’s just not the same.  I like the feel of a book, the smell of the paper and the look of them on shelves.  We used to have a monthly budget for books ( yes, seriously) but that is something that has been cut out.

One of my favourite places to buy books was Value Village.  Often kid’s books are on sale as low as $0.25 each, and normally they are around $1.00 to $2.00 each. Buy four, and you get a fifth one free!  We used to go, and dig through the bins, finding “treasures” like old “Little Critter” books to add to their collections.  I would wander through the adult books and pick up a novel by a favourite author, or find neat reference books on topics that interested us.  It wasn’t unusual to come home with 20 books for the kids, and two or three for me. 

Another favourite of mine was online shopping.  I found great books, used and new alike on Amazon.  I also love Christian Book( www.christianbook.com).  They sell at wholesale prices, and even with exchange and shipping, their prices are great!

I have frequented the library over the years, often looking up topics I was interested in or authors I liked.  But, I was always returning things late because I wanted to re-read that chapter that had some great bit of information I wanted to remember. Since cutting out money for books, I  have completely fallen in love with my local library all over again.  I can look up any topic or book on the search engine, and they will order it in for me from wherever it may happen to be in the province ( a great new feature since the whole province joined into one giant group).  Our kids own mountains of books, but they still love library time, wandering along the shelves choosing whatever jumps out at them, or searching for a specific interest.  I love that we can still read mountains of books without spending a dime.  And now we’re there so often, I don’t usually forget to bring the books back on time.

I still like actually owning books though.  Sometimes, I just know that it’s something I’ll enjoy rereading again in the future.  Sometimes, it’s because we are studying it with our Sunday School group, or as part of a Bible Study and I know I am going to write in it.  Sometimes, it’s just an awesome reference book that I think we’ll use.

So for now, books are not a regular part of our budget.  There are special exceptions when we’re going to be studying one, or when I choose to use gift money on one.  I’ve started reviewing books, so I get some for free.  And, I’m making full use of what is already available to me for free : My Library!