Honestly, I’ve had better luck with Thriftbooks these days. They make no secret of the fact that they’re selling used books (I think most of their stock is retired library books), but they’re cheap and every one I’ve acquired has been in a suitable condition for the price I paid for it.
Or there’s Powell’s, a place in Portland which is believed to be the world’s largest independent bookstore (it takes up an entire city block in downtown Portland and has four stories of sales floor space) and also sells online. They’re a reliable business that sells both new and used books, including a stock of rare books some of which date back hundreds of years. (In the physical store, they’ve got a 1st edition copy of the report of the Lewis & Clark expedition which retails for $25,000!)
I just bought a 2nd hand book through Abebooks. It came in a sealed plastic wrapper, then bubble wrapped, then put in a sealed plastic envelope. I figure it could have been thrown 100 yards into a pool of water, run over and it still would have arrived in great shape.
OHhh, I’ve been there. A must-do if you’re ever in Portland. They have a large room with JUST SF books. This room alone is bigger than most bookstores.
Here ya go! Bookshop.org sells new books, often at a discount, ships them properly as books, and donates a bit of the sale price to the local bookstore of your choice.
Better World Books sells both new and used books, has a wide selection, just ships books, and supports literacy projects internationally. You can also include a small amount for a carbon offset on the delivery.
Libraries used to be big on the Overdrive platform for their e-books. Which gave you downloadable off-line readable but still DRM-protected auto-expiring copies of the file.
A few years ago that became passé and all the cool libraries switched to Libby. Online-only to read; there is no download.
At the point I stopped using libraries, so things may have changed a bit since.
This is no longer the case. Books are automatically downloaded from Libby to your device when connecting via Wi-Fi. They are automatically removed when your lending period has expired.
(Unless, of course, you have a book on a device that you use only for reading Libby material, and you turn off Wi-Fi until you’re done reading the book. That’s what I’ve heard, anyway.)
Of course my “device” is a Windows PC, and my prior experience was that Libby on their website and Libby on an Android or iDevice are very different user experiences.
It is quite possible that Libby on Windows behaves differently than Android or IOS. I have never read or listened to a Libby book on my laptop. I’ve read some previews, but never an entire book.
Although, in doing a bit of research, it appears that Libby does not automatically download to a Windows device, but you can force a download if desired.
Here’s the response from AI within Chrome:
How to Access: Use libbyapp.com in a web browser (Chrome, Safari, Edge, Firefox) on your laptop.
Downloading: Once a book is borrowed, click the cloud icon or menu options to download for offline access.
This is correct, at least for me (SF Public Library). I just put my Kindle on Airplane mode if there are books I haven’t finished before their time runs out (3 weeks at my library). I tend to over-borrow because, even using Goodreads, my success rate at finding books I actually want to read is maybe 2 out of 3; if my success rate in any one library visit is better than that, I won’t have gotten through them all before they would otherwise be removed.
Same. I get the max loans and get them all on my Kindle, then put it in airplane mode. They recently changed how the hold system works for my library so it’s more of a pain, but still functional.
If I’m looking for an older book, this is where I always go first. The vendors there are mostly real bookstores. But didn’t Amazon buy Abebooks? I worry about the future of the site, if true.
Anyway, back on the topic of stupid MFers, the guy who composed the Zulu chant at the beginning of The Lion King is suing a comedian for $27 million over a viral podcast clip in which he (accurately) translated the lyrics, claiming that he is now being targeted by assassins because of the joke.
“Jonasi’s reduction to ‘Look, there’s a lion. Oh my god’ is not a simplified translation—it is a fabricated, trivializing distortion, meant as a sick joke for unlawful self-profit and destruction of the imaginative and artistic work of Lebo M,” the complaint says. “The true meaning of Nants’ ingonyama bagithi Baba is ‘All hail the king, we all bow in the presence of the king.’”
It seems like they are both right. And while the comedian’s translation isn’t exactly like what I’ve seen posted, it’s pretty damn close.
This seems to be pretty good article talking about it:
And a similar one saying much the same thing:
The lyrics to that verse go “Nants ingonyama bagithi baba / Sithi uhhmm ingonyama / Ingonyama / Siyo Nqoba / Ingonyama / Ingonyama nengw’ enamabala.” So, a more comprehensive and literal translation would be “Here comes a lion, father / Oh yes it’s a lion / A lion / We’re going to conquer / A lion and a leopard come to this open place.”
Followers of the show on Instagram added even more context for those not fluent in Zulu. “It’s actually ‘Behold, a king, my people.’ Ingonyama means lion, but it also refers to a king. This guy oversimplified this for humor,” shared Instagram user @nqobile_mathumbeza, while commenter @jmelenaa_ added, “The Zulu lyrics are more like a powerful chant celebrating the lion’s arrival, not just literal statements.”
Supposedly, the literal translation is “here is a lion”, but in Zulu culture, they refer to a king as a “lion”. So in that sense, it also means “here is the king”.
Another article talking about a literal translation:
