I love books. I have two bookshelves bursting with them, and I’d struggle to get rid of any (my friends often use my collection as a library). Each book is laced with memories and often an intention of lending it to someone I know. But I rarely buy them new, partly because my budget couldn’t keep up with my speed of reading if I bought them all new, but also because there are so many books already in circulation that it seems like a waste to buy a new one.
Most of my books come from charity shops or second hand bookshops. I much prefer shopping for books there, finding the smaller choice means that I pick books I may not have otherwise read. Admittedly, it can be frustrating if you’re looking for a particular book, but some of my best discoveries of new authors and favourite books have been the result of an impulse £2 purchase.
When I started this project, I quickly realised that I was going to have to do quite a lot of research. And while some research can be done online (my preferred method, as I don’t have to move from behind my laptop), I soon found that I needed to read some books. Quite a lot of books in fact.
It struck me at this point that purchasing a lot of books in order to research a book on consumerism might be a touch ironic, and so I set about pursuing other options.
The first was to visit my local second hand book shop. I emerged, clutching two promising looking books on food. Not bad, and the money was going to support a worthy charity. But upon revisiting the same shop a month later, the stock was looking pretty unchanged, and I realised that whilst I might occasionally stumble upon an interesting book on the shelves of second hand and charity shops, I wouldn’t find all the books I wanted upon their dusty shelves. And the wish list was getting longer by the day.
Option two then beckoned – the friendship library. I have a great bunch of friends who are interested in similar things. A quick query on facebook led to a couple of friends offering to lend me some of the books on my list. That’s a few ticked off, but what about the rest?
This bothered me for some time. And then over lunch one day, a friend pointed out the glaringly obvious solution – how about the library?
Crikey. I can’t remember the last time I borrowed a book from the library, but I’m fairly sure that it was in some effort to impress the cute Irish guy who worked in the local library at University. Later that day, a quick internet search revealed an online catalogue. A few searches showed that every single book I wanted was in their catalogue, and even if it wasn’t available at the central library, it could be reserved and transferred for the measly cost of 60p. And best of all, I can collect them from the local library that’s about 2 minutes walk from work. All I have to do is wait for the email telling me they’ve arrived, and then pop down and collect it. Not only can I reserve and renew books online, I can even join from the comfort of my sofa. Problem solved.
So now I’ve got a stack of exciting books ready for my perusal, I just need to find the time to read them...
(Admittedly, it probably isn’t going to stop me buying second hand books, but I probably will use it if there’s a specific fiction book that I want to read, instead of popping onto Amazon and clicking the “buy it now” button. )
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