Where do you get your books from? - retail stores, thrift st

[Breast Pump]

Personally, I rather buy books than check 'em out. Only because I tend to read when I please-- so due dates and I don't go well together. However, books are expensive and I'm too chicken to steal them from Barnes and Nobles. Today, I took a wrong turn and came across The Salvation Army, typically I wouldn't go in one of those but I figured I had time to waste and maybe I'd find a few books or a cute tote bag. Guess how many books I found! Here are the following books I got for $4 bucks: Black Boy- Richad Wright; Catch-22- Joseph Heller; The Jungle- Upton Sinclair; Leaves of Grass- Walt Whitman; Trinity- Leon Uris; Crime and Punishment- Fyodor Dostoyevsky; The Lord of the RIngs (part one)- J.R.R. Tolkien. WOW! did i hit the jackpot or what? I have a feeling I found such great books because this thrift store was located in the ghetto. Reading in the ghetto is just not popular, me thinks.

[MJM]

Thrift stores and the like are a gold mine.

I had a store I used to get all my books from, 25nzc each, thats about 12 usc and 8p. But it closed down unfortunately.

I go to a good 2nd hand book store to get all my commie stuff. Usually about 5$nz a book, unless it's a first edition or something like that.
There must be a few hundred leftist books there at least, I could spend hundreds of $$ there.

[Maaja]

I buy mostly old books, they are not in general extremely old but just that people have sold them and I can buy them with low price.

[Fires of History]

Used book stores are my favorite. Congrats on discovering the world of second hand.

And if you are going to buy a new book, which I do sometimes too for sure, make sure to buy it from a local smaller store, NOT a chain store. Put your money back into your community as much as you can, not into some huge corporation sending the proftis off hundreds of miles away. Also, when you support a local non-chain store, it is usually run my someone with a passion for books, a love for reading, and a wonderful knowledge of what's out there- can you say that about the flunkies at a chain store!?

Even little bookstores, I have found, can get you anything you want even if have to order it, and nothing excites small bookstores than people willing to order from them :)

[vox]

Personally, I love the library. I have too many books as it is, any more and I'll start using them for furniture. Too, the library, or I should say the library system I use, often has out-of-print books that are a little hard to find. Plus, if I think I might want to buy a book, I can check it out of the library first and make sure it's worth it.

By the way, library book sales are excellent places to find very cheap books. I've bought a lot of poetry at library books sales.

vox

[Breast Pump]

I don't shop at large retail stores (unless it's online) because not even a local bookstore can beat online prices. Anyway, for the most part I do buy my books at a local bookstore but I know someone who steals dozens if not hundreds of books from B&Ns, I envy him =(


I've been to our city's central library booksales and I have not been as fortunate as you. Really old books that are usually self-help, cookbooks, business related, etc., etc.,... nothing worth buying.


(Edited by Breast Pump at 2:09 am on April 14, 2002)

[red senator]

I bought my first copy of the Communist Manifesto at Books-a-Million and I haven't been back to that place since. Wasn't that a good sale for them?
Anyway, I do buy on-line from Barnes and Noble, becuase their prices are good and you can find stuff easily. However, if you go to the actual store you have dig through shit and you only get to what they decide to put out in that store, and you have to deal with the clerk who just got fired from burger king the week before for being incompetent.
Also, the one independant bookstore in my area is run by two women who are indepedantly wealthy, so they really aren't interested in giving you the best customer service. They really just use it as a place to read all day.

[Fires of History]

Red Senator,

If you are going to shop online, I ~highly~ recommend Powell's, it's the only UNIONIZED bookstore on the internet. And they have leftist books you would only dream about. Fuck Barnes & Noble, unless you'd like you're Grey Poupon with that, just joking ;-)

http://www.powells.com/

They don't require a credit card, however, money orders are only available for domestic orders. So, when I moved to Canada, I couldn't shop there anymore :-(

But go check it out, such a GREAT bookstore!

[PunkRawker677]

http://pathfinderpress.com/
check them out.. its a revolutionary - international bookstore.. its got great titles and the prices are pretty good..

i personally love my libraby.. just like vox.. i have WAY too many books and dont have all that much space.. my library is a combination between two college libraries so its the biggest in south florida, and its just wonderful.. its 4 stories and PACKED with out-of-print books, and cheap to-buy books..

[I Will Deny You]

I prefer libraries, especially my school's because it has lots of stuff that would be impossible to find anywhere else. Second-hand stores have lots of great stuff (not just books, but also music) at very, very low prices--I've gotten a book by Norman Mailer for $1.25! Second-hand stores also let you trade books, nice for when you're finished reading something that you bought but didn't like very much. My friends and I also borrow books from each other all of the time. The best solution is to live with four other people and keep your parents near by. Do that, and you'll be able to find any book you want!

There is a small chain called Olsson's, and I'm sure that they don't reach every end of the earth where a Che-Lives member can be found but people in the Mid-Atlantic United States shouldn't have a problem finding them. They're a chain, but I've noticed that they have little staff recommendation cards all around, the staff are helpful and know a lot about books (unlike the drones at Border's) and they have autographed copies of a lot of books. Also, their sale books are often great finds that I would have never thought of buying but end up falling in love with. They can order anything you want as well.

[Valkyrie]

I've gotten tons of excellent out of print books at used bookstores. I was lucky to come across a first edition run (1967) of the Bolivian Diaries put out by Ramparts.
Another che book I got from a used book store is Che's Reminiscences of the Cuban Revolutionary War. Tons of Marxist lit too! Used books are great if you can get passed the handwritten margin notes, dog-eared pages, and other unidentifiable objects. ekkk!!!! Well, no matter, I have heard from a first hand source that at a reputedly reputable corporate bookstore chain, that customers have been caught with the goods in their hands ( or should I say their good)while masterbating onto the books. And these weren't porn books either folks. Well, that will take out corporate bookstores for sure!!!!! Just a warning people... When in the History sections, Look before you handle!!!!

(Edited by Paris at 2:16 am on April 14, 2002)

[MJM]

Here's the web site to my fav. store
hard to find bookshop (http://www.hardtofind.co.nz/)

[pce]

"you have to deal with the clerk who just got fired from burger king the week before for being incompetent. "

i'm hurt :( i work at barnes and nobles...sorry

every once in a while someone comes in and asks about books on che and i feel my heart racing. i know exactly where ever one is unlike the other employees who go "umm...how do you spell that?"

i try to make sure all the good shtuff is in stock not to mention slipping bits of propaganda in as many books as possible ;)

actually, a surprising many people come in asking for books on che (the jon anderson one is constantly going out of stock and reordered) and chomsky and the like.

by the way, that pathfinderpress place is awesome punkrawker!

(Edited by pce at 8:01 pm on April 14, 2002)

[Guest]

the one and only place: BORDERS!!!!!!!!!!!!
that is seriously my home

[Maaja]

Sometimes if I want a book, I go to a bookstore of used books and ask them to order it. That's the best way to get a book what I can't find. In Estoniw we don't have chains of bookstores of used books, all the shops are little and charming!

[SA160]

I would suggest you order the free catalog from AK Press. Great titles available and a cooperative on top of that.

[Michael De Panama]

I go to "Half Priced Books", for the most part. My local library is just horrible.

Barnes & Noble is apparently very easy to steal from. My friend...well, not my friend, he's my friend's friend...has gotten thousands of dollars worth of things for free from that store.

[Valkyrie]

Yeah, the AK Press catalogue is great -- 200 pages or so of revolutionary books. At the bottom of their site you can request a catalogue.

http://www.AKPress.org
http://www.leftbankbooks.org

[Fires of History]

Quote: from pce on 4:45 am on April 14, 2002
"you have to deal with the clerk who just got fired from burger king the week before for being incompetent. "

i'm hurt :( i work at barnes and nobles...sorry



PCE,

Well, then, it's obvious you don't fit into the 'burger king flunkie' category! Jeez, if only more bookstore clerks had a clue like you.

Glad to hear that books on Che, by Chomsky, and such are moving so well.

And don't say 'sorry' for working and B&N, we all are forced into this system which neither supports or considers us. We do what we can, I doubt it was what you dreamed of doing as a child, and that's enough in my book :) It's not like you're defending them as a chain or anything.

[Freedom Fighter]

I usually try local bookstores first but i live in a small town so i usually dont have much luck. Otherwise i order from freedom shop(my countrys anarchist bookstore), akpress.com, kersplebedeb.com... or as an absolute last resort.... amazon.com

[Jurhael]

I've used(and still use) all three routes. New, used and the Library.

Used bookstores are great for old and hard to find stuff. Same could be said for the Library. But, I get some satisfaction from buying a new book as well. Some I've gotten from small, local bookstores and some from the bigger places, like B. Dalton, Waldenbooks and Books a Million (I a bad socialist...ehehee...but it's not often so...).