Where do/did you buy your books

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

Bookstores had their heyday from about 1970 until a couple of years ago. That’s about the timer span that chain bookstores were a “thing” in suburban malls (as well as urban areas, and a few standalones). Now the chains are mostly gone, with only a few Barns and Nobles and Books A Million/BAM and a few independents left. The closest bookstore to where I’m writing from now – a tiny independent – is ten miles away. The closest general bookstore of any size is more like 235.

The point of this thread is to ask where you got your books before there was a nearby chain bookstore, or where you get them now when most people are evidently reading from the internet, or ordering physical books through the internet.

News stands – I bought surprising books from my local news stand. I got a copy of Roget’s Thesaurus there (the real original one in paperback, with classifications by word type, rather than in dictionary form). Also a history of samurai. And lots of science fiction. Nowadays something called a news stand doesn’t even carry newspapers – just candy, drinks, and cigarettes. If I want a newspaper or magazine I have to go to a bookstore.

Department stores – My real go-to place for most book purchases. Several local department stores had several racks of books, often organized into categories. It was the closest and most reliable source of a variety of books, although you weren’t sure what you’d find. A few department stores, before the advent of the big chain bookstores, had pretty big and good selections. This lasted into the 1980s

Drugstores and hardware stores – drugstores usually had at least a rotating rack of books, and sometimes more. At least two nearby hardware stores had bookracks that must have brought in a little extra cash.

Flea markets, yard sales, and antique stores – adventitious but unpredictable selection. Usually pretty cheap, though. One local flea market had a huge permanent setup with a large selection.

College book stores – The nearby college in my youth had a pretty abysmal bookstore, though.

Used book stores – we didn’t have any of these nearby

Real Bookstores – none close by. You usually had to go to the Big City for these.

Mail Order – I actually wrote to some places to get books I couldn’t find nearby

Library – You could always find books there, but you couldn’t buy them. I don’t recall any book sales when I was a kid. We didn’t have the Scholastic Books sales like my daughter had as a kid.

Now in these post-bookstore days I can’t get books at department stores (except a few at Target and Walmart – rotten selection), newsstands, or hardware stores. You can find a rack of best seller paperbacks at the local CVS or Walgreen’s, but I’ll never find a history of Samurai there, and even science fiction is unlikely.
Used book stores are few and far between.

So my major sources now are the few remaining bookstores, like Barnes and Noble and the used book section in places like Salvation Army and Savers. A limited selection at comic book stores. And, of course, the internet.

2

I live in a city which prides itself on its independent stores and restaurants, so I do have some independent bookshops locally, including one owned by my neighbour, where if I don’t show up and by something fairly regularly, I get attacks of guilt and avoid them in the street. We also have a lot of charity shops, where second hand books are easy to find if you’re not fussy about what you want. There’s also a large chain (Waterstones) that’s pretty good.

However, I’m also a sucker for an impulse purchase from Amazon. Tell no one.

3

If I’m trying to acquire a specific book these days, I’m probably ordering from Amazon, if I’m just looking for something to read I can usually find something at one of the thrift stores. I might have to shop at more than one, but luckily there are three different stores all grouped around a particular intersection, so that’s ok. There are(I think) a couple of book stores 30 or 40ish miles away in the next county over, but I’ve never shopped over there, I’m not even 100% certain they’re still there.

4

I get the majority of my books from used bookstores (Half Priced Books) and local bookstores. I will very rarely order a book from Amazon, although I’m more likely to just borrow it from the library instead.

5

I would often buy books at an airport before a flight. But now it’s 100% Kindle/Amazon.

There are some that ‘claim’ to be bookstores in this county. But really just novelty shops for tourists.

6

Boston used to be this way, but around about 2000 there was a purge of used bookstores and shortly after the chains and independents started disappearing. We’ve still got the Coop and the Harvard bookstore, but there was a slaughter of great places to get books.

There’;s still Trident Bookstore/cafe, and Harvard Books took over the Barnes and Noble spot at the Pru. There’s a relatively new store on Newbury Street, and a brand new one on Charles Street on Beacon Hill. Aside from college bookstores, that’s about it. The plethora of great bookstores and used stores are gone. The three and a half story Waterstones bookstore on Essex Street is long gone (sob!) The Avenue Victor Hugo bookstore, once on Newbury Street, and relatively recently revived in Lee New Hampshire just closed for the second (and last) time.

7

I get most of my actual physical books from estate sales, I go to them 3 to 4 times a month. The advanage of this is that people keep what they consider the best books on thier shelves, so its like having them review the book. If it made it to the shelf then they thought it was a good book (most of the time). Many times you can find first editions and signed copies at estate sales for a reasonable price if the people running the sale are not book people.

I find that yard sales and thrift shops are usually filled with books nobody wants to keep around.

8

I’ve found quite a few decent reads at yard sales. And my local Savers has a “Classics” section that has yielded quite a few excellent books I hadn’t seen elsewhere.

9

I mostly got books from the library. And from my parents’ extensive collection (all of Agatha Christie, for instance). But when I bought books?

My mother used to take us to the “Musty Dusty”, a book store that sold to drug stores, supermarkets, department stores, news stands, and such. It was huge. It was organized by publisher instead of by topic. It had all sorts of weird stuff in the corners. I loved my trips there.

Now I mostly get books from the library. Mostly ebooks from the library. I need to go in-person to renew my library card soon, so I can keep doing this. :wink:

And yet, somehow, I have books all over the place, including in tottering piles in the bedroom. I should probably prune them and get rid of a lot and try to shelve the rest.

I haven’t bought many books recently because I’m mostly reading e-books, but I am allergic to buying stuff with DRM. So there aren’t very many books available for me to buy these days. When music went mostly DRM-free, I bought a lot of music electronically. I’d buy books, too, if I were more comfortable with the medium. But maybe it’s just as well. I have a lot of books.

10

I prefer to browse before buying. My most recent purchases were from the University Bookstore, Magus Books (used bookstore around the corner), and Third Place Books, all in the Seattle area.

I buy greeting cards at Barnes and Noble. Haven’t bought a book there in 5 years or more.

For known authors, Kindle is far less expensive and much more convenient.

11

We have hundreds of books, most of them purchased for pennies on the dollar at used book sales. There’s a Books-a-Million across town, which replaced a Border’s. and there a few small, used bookstores in town. Within 25-30 miles are two Barnes and Nobles. We’ve purchased a few books from them. The last physical book I purchased was "All About Me’ by Mel Brooks, which I purchased at BJ’s Wholesale Club. I’m surprised they still carry books. By the looks of it, they don’t sell many.

My wife has purchased a number of books on Amazon, specialized books that were available nowhere else. I would probably do the same, as most books that would interest me wouldn’t be available at a brick-and-mortar store. At this point, I’m working my way through books we’ve already purchased so we can cull the library.

12

This is referring to Boston, and is applicable to much of the US broadly.

But here in Europe, bookstores are still going strong. I stop in at every good-sized book shop in every city I visit, and usually pick up a book or three. I just got Wolf Hall in Belgium a few weeks ago, a title I’ve been meaning to read for years. I’m in Prague now and will be visiting a semi-famous English language book shop tomorrow after lunch.

Amazon hasn’t killed the European bookstore like it’s laid waste in the US. Not yet anyway.

13

In the last 10 years, I’ve been getting my books from Amazon for my Kindle or audio books from the online library (Libby) to listen to with my phone. Years ago, I would get my books from Target, Walmart, Barnes & Noble, Dalton, drug stores, etc. I also used to go to a used book store where you could trade in your books for credit towards “new” books. I don’t remember the last time I purchased a regular paper book. They’re expensive and it’s so much easier to carry around my Kindle with 1000s of options.

14

When I was a kid we lived a bike ride away from the University of Pittsburgh campus. I’d ride to Oakland, go to the campus bookstore, then over to Winky’s (where I was happy to be hungry) for some cheap burgers.

15

Major sources of books in rough order of importance: library books, Amazon, Half Price Books, Barnes & Noble.

There’s a good used bookstore in coastal Maine for when we’re there.

16

Before chain bookstores, I probably used to buy paperbacks at the larger drugstores. But I didn’t have much spending money, so I was mostly a library book person. Before I went away to college, the only big bookstore I knew of in my town (Portland, Oregon) was also an office supply store, but the books were on the street level floor, and that’s all I ever looked at. It was called J.K. Gill & Co. and it was on the corner of Fifth and Stark in downtown. When I went away to college, the college bookstore had tons of books outside of textbooks and required books. When I got back to Portland, Powell’s Books was just getting started, and I went there now and then during the time I was living in NW Portland. When I moved to the east side, I was much closer to Lloyd Center, and I’m sure they had at least one bookstore, but I don’t remember details about that.

17

Going way back to when I was a kid, department stores were a big thing and were probably where I or my parents got many of my books. In more recent years, I used to love browsing big chain bookstores. Nowadays it’s likely to be Amazon, and if it’s just the text content I’m interested in as opposed to something aesthetic to add to my library, it’s likely to just be a Kindle download. I’ve had no reason to be in a physical bookstore in years, and it wouldn’t surprise me if some of my old haunts didn’t even exist any more. If they’re still there, they must be just barely hanging on.

18

I get most of my physical books from the library. Sometimes I even return them when I’m done reading. :slight_smile:

Beyond that, I’ve gotten some good reads at thrift stores. Just have to sort through the Harlequin romances.

There is a secondhand book shop in town, but the owner/sole employee is a surly cur who doesn’t seem to want anyone there.

There is a Barnes and Nobel at the mall, but it’s more like a coffee shop that happens to sell some books on the side. I’ve gotten gift books there though.

19

When I first started buying books I got them from the Kroch’s and Brentano’s in downtown Chicago, and from a local bookstore. When I started going to Sci-Fi conventions I bought a lot from the book dealers (a friend seeing me walk away from one with my haul described the sight as “a pile of books with legs”). Later I started shopping at Border’s and Waldenbooks, both of which were convenient to where I lived and worked.

Now I get most of my paper books from online book dealers like ThriftBooks and Book Outlet, and my Kindle books from Amazon and various Kickstarter programs. I don’t do as many conventions as I used to, and since I’m usually flying home from them I can’t buy as much as I used to.

20

My first bookstore was a chain, Waldenbooks, back in the early to mid 80s.

But I bought very few there, as a child, just not enough money. About the time I moved into my pre-teen years (mid to late 80s) I discovered used bookstores and spent almost all of my money there. Which was pretty much what I did through my college years, along with local libraries, which were much better than the singular option I had through highschool.

As an adult, I normally bought my books through the local gaming and sci-fi/fantasy specialty store, along with my other supplements and dice, because while I could find a bit better values, it was more fun to hang out with like minded sorts and support a local business that could help me find the more exotic stuff.

As those closed and consolidated due to costs and competition with the bigger box stores (B&N and Borders), none of which had much selection, I became an early online adopter, ordering books both new and used from Amazon, and was a pre-kindle adopter of e-books (back in the day I had a Microsoft PDA I could read on!).

These days about 80% of the books I buy are ebooks, although I make exceptions for certain series I already have partially completed in paper format. It’s just so much easier to have a variety and instant access on my cellular tablet even without wifi.

Still, for certain formats (notably graphic novels and bound editions of manga / manhwa) I try to buy at the few specialty stores I can find, and only after that, buy via online means. Even a 10’ tablet does a lousy job for those media IMHO.