Upon reentering a world that you've been far removed from for a many number of years, especially the literary world, it's hard to know where to start. I was talking to Ryan's mother Dian around the time of my birthday, which is when this new obsession started. In this posting, I want to outline some of the sites that have made exploring new books possible and even (at times) cheap, because being a bibliophile is not a poor man's sport.
First, how it all started: Goodreads
There are not enough words in this world to describe how much I adore this website. I feel like its all I talk about and I literally try to work it into every conversation so I can get more of my friends on here. Dian, Ryan's mother, casually mentioned to me that she knew of a website and phone application where you can rate books and find new reads based on how you rate books you've read. It is SO MUCH more than that. Initially, yes, you need to get a basis set up for how Goodreads is going to recommend books for you, thus rating books. But from there you discover a community of people who love books as much as you do. I constantly think, "these are my people." You can add friends, follow top reviewers, called "Librarians" (meaning they write the most reviews and read the most books), follow authors (because almost every author you can think of is on there), write reviews, win first read books, download free books to your eReaders, so on and so forth ad infinitum. So far, I have won two, totally free books, written four reviews and brought my overall "pages read" total up from zero to nearly three thousand in a little over a month. I'd mark that in the life win column. The reason I love this site so much can be broken down like this: I'm the kind of person who walks into a bookstore and just stops. I'm taken in by all the beautiful cover art, all the possible options and worlds I could invest myself in. The problem is, I don't get much further than that. I start getting overwhelmed, thinking, "I can't buy this book, EVERYONE is reading it, what if it doesn't live up to the hype", and "I can't buy this book, I've never even HEARD of anyone reading it before!." It's quite the catch-22, and a situation in which I'm so under pressure to pick the right book I end up not buying any. So why I love Goodreads so much is because the website takes ALL of those doubts away from me. There are so many user reviews and knowledgeable sources on this site that I can research a book until my heart (and head) are content with knowing I have chosen well. I was having a conversation with Ryan the other day about how much money I have spent on books in the last month and was able to justify that spending money on books is a much better use of my resources than previous habits, aka alcohol. Everyone has to have their own vice, I just think reading and book buying happens to be one of the better ones. I digress. Back to Goodreads. I highly encourage anyone, book lover, avid reader, or literary novice alike to check out Goodreads and become my friend! Reading is the world's greatest gift to quote my friend Hannah.
Next, where I get my books: Thriftbooks
When I started my Goodreads adventure, I found myself running into some road blocks instantly. After having rated books and got some recommendations, I took my phone (which was loaded with the Goodreads application and my "To Read" books) and headed down to my local book store. SCCCRRRREEEETTTCCCHHHH. That's the proverbial breaks being slammed down on my runaway book reading dreams. I live in a small town. We don't have a Barnes and Noble. We have Godfather's Books who has a resident homeless man in a motorcycle helmet with a shopping cart and not a thing published in the last three to six months. Yes, it's a wonderful store if I'm on vacation and I want to read that book that everyone had been swooning over last year that I never had a chance to read. But if I'm a budding bibliophile who wants to get caught up on the latest and greatest? I'm screwed. I left that book store so deflated, I almost gave up. Portland is a two hour drive for us, and shopping on Amazon, though you can most times get used books for $.01, shipping is around $3.99 on every book you buy. Things weren't going my way at this point, and thats when I turned to YouTube. I started watching TONS of Vlogs (video blogs) on book hauls and bookshelf tours and book reviews. For like, days (remember I wasn't working a lot, read: at all). What I came to find was this wonderful, beautiful, fabulous website called Thriftbooks. Imagine a place where you can find used books at hugely discounted rates with free shipping. Heavenly, right? FREE SHIPPING?! NO MATTER HOW MANY OR FEW BOOKS YOU ORDER?! Devine. So I sent in my first order, 6 books for $22, all of which were classified as "very good condition". They arrived a week later, and I can't say how perfectly pleased I am. They all look as if they've never been read before and I can't wait to dive in! If you follow Thriftbooks on Facebook, they update you with coupon codes. So not only did each book cost only about $3.60 each, I got 15% off on top of that. Boom.
 |
| My latest Thrifbooks acquire (I like to take pretty pictures of my books). |
 |
| A Powell's Books find. |
 |
| Before I knew about Thriftbooks, full price from Barnes and Noble + Godfather's. |
Last, something fun: BookMooch
So I just started on this adventure. I don't have much to say about it as of yet, but I'll give you the premise. I found this site about two days ago when I was putzing around Instagram (if you don't know... no words. Speak to the Google) when I saw a similar, pretty stack of books, much like those shown above. The hashtag on it was #bookmooch (again, if you don't know about hashtags, see Google). So I puttered over to the site and found out that it's a book swap meet! People come together who have books they no longer need (read: I couldn't sell them for anything worth my time on Amazon) and they ship them off to strangers around the world who want what you have! Basically it breaks down this way: 1) You add books you own and are ready to part with and you gain .10 of a point per book. 2) You save up your points, once you have 1 pt, you can "mooch" a book, aka have someone send it to you. 3) If one of your books is "mooched", you send that book to the person's address they provided (yes, you pay for shipping) and you get 1 pt per book mooched. 4) You create a wishlist of books you want and eventually they'll be added and you can mooch the book (hopefully).
So where I'm at right now with this: I love the idea of it. Like shipping is rarely more than $3.00 and I love passing on something that I enjoyed. Yesterday, six of the eight books I posted had been mooched, so I headed off to the post office and sent out said books, with pretty notes attached that will hopefully make the person's day. It was a total of roughly $18.00, no big deal. Here's where I'm running into trouble. I can't find a single book I want to mooch. Like all of the popular books have HUGE wait lists or are in countries where the owner doesn't want to ship to the US. So, what I'm doing is creating a HUGE wishlist, the thinking behind it being that the more fish in the barrel, the more likely I am to shoot one. Right? We'll see. I think I have the advantage over a lot of other people in that I always am working on my computer and I always have my phone checking my email, so that if one of my books does pop up, I'll be quick like tiger in getting it, that's the theory anyway.
I hope this has helped anyone who is on that endless quest for the next best book, I think next blog I'll update you all with what I have purchased lately, the genres I've been reading and any recommendations I have. Until next time! Happy Saturday!
No comments:
Post a Comment