Buying books - do you have a particular genre, or will you read anything?
I’ll read anything that catches my interest, but I have a definite predilection for fiction – particularly contemporary legal and criminal thrillers. My first favorite author was P.D. James: as a young teen browsing a British train station shop during a family trip, I picked up a copy of Shroud For A Nightingale (~13 years after it was published). That interest continued with John Grisham, Scott Turow, David Baldacci, Michael Connelly, etc. Current favorites include Louise Penny, and J.K. Rowling writing as Robert Galbraith. I also have supernatural/fantasy tastes, though, with abiding love for Stephen King novels and the Harry Dresden series – and J.K. Rowling writing as herself (i.e., the Harry Potter series).
Do you buy books as soon as they’re out, wait for the paperback or the price to go down, or wait until you can get it used?
If there’s a series I’m following, I’ll buy the next book either the day its released or whenever I learn that there’s another one. These days I only read on my Kindle, so paperback/used pricing doesn’t apply. Sometimes Kindle edition prices eventually go down as the book gets older, but I never take that into account. Every now and then there will be an older book I’m interested in that seems to be overpriced so I’ll skip it, but generally if there’s something I want to read I don’t worry about whether it might be cheaper later.
Do you prowl the used book stores? Look for new to you books in the bookstore?
I used to love doing this, but at some point I became 100% digital. The last time I browsed a used bookstore was in 2017, while on vacation in Cape Cod, and I knew that I’d completed “the change” when I saw a few interesting titles and caught myself wondering if they were available digitally. The realization made me a little sad, but for me there are more pros to the switch than cons.
That said, next month I’ll be getting a physical book for the first time in years: Barnes & Noble is hosting a live Zoom interview with Louise Penny the night before the new Armand Gamache book (#19) will be released, and the only way to get a ticket is to order a book. I decided that I’m interested enough in the interview to do so, even though I’ll be buying the Kindle edition the next day. The book will ship sometime after the interview; I’ll donate it/give it away.
Or surf the suggested books on Amazon?
Only very infrequently. Every now and then I simply won’t be interested in anything I’ve already downloaded but will want something new to read, and I’ll surf the “legal thrillers” suggestions. I might download a sample here or there, but I rarely wind up actually reading (i.e., buying) any of them. That’s also usually when I’ll wander into the current “Whatcha Reading” thread. 
Or are you on a free ebook list?
Nope. I also don’t have an active library card – my younger self would be aghast!! – and never get content that way.
For physical books, after you finish the book, what do you do with it? Sell it, keep it, share it, give it away?
I donated most of the physical books I used to have to local libraries. I’ve kept a handful that either have particular sentimental meaning or are somewhat collectible (e.g., old sci-fi by Dean Koontz and two NSFW fiction titles by Bruce Dickinson), and I also still have several coffee table books in the living room – though none of them is on the coffee table.
For ebooks, do you organize them?
I have several collections on my Kindle, including:
- one for every author who I have more than one book from
- one for authors I only have one book from (“misc read”)
- the books that I’m currently reading (“in progress”)
- books that I’ve bought and downloaded but haven’t read yet (“to read”)
- samples that I’ve downloaded but haven’t read yet (“samples”)
- books I lost interest in but might want to try again another time (“finish later”)
- books I disliked so much that I decided not to finish them (“abandoned”) – which is rare, but sometimes happens