A Stevestream about You and Books!

Books have become so expensive $30 for hardcover and $18 for trade. Miss the days I would just go to the bookstore and buy the book or books I wanted.

I use my library and purchase only through thrift stores, library sales, and online used books sites. Occasionally I will purchase from Amazon if I am unable to find what I am looking for in my other haunts and the price is right. I also purchase some from the UK where the trades are more reasonable. I do not run out for new releases. I just wait till they hit the library or the thrift stores.

Oh, man. I sure wish that I could have made it to this Stevestream, because as watching this, I've got at least a comment per minute! Maybe it's a good thing that I didn't arrive on time-- the chat would have been full of my blabbing! This is GREAT so far, and I'm highly interested in everything being talked about! Don't worry, though, I'm gonna try to end my comment here instead of going on! Ha ha

Can't seem to find your email, probably operator error. Lol. Can you recommend books about the Knights Templar? Teutonic Knights, also the Knights Hospitaler please?

I Thrift my books, from Goodwill secondhand shops etc.

I do by from Ollie's once or twice a month

In Edinburgh we had Thins which was an institution in the town. Its now a chain. Ten quid for a book is steep for a book compared to a fiver 20 years ago. I buy a new book a week but also if it was 1999 I'd get 7 books for a tenner in 2nd hand shops. Have kindle but prefer paper.

Library used book sales and online thrift, abe books and Amazon are how I manily find books that you Steve recommend from your Brattle Book hauls and Library tours.
I do use my local library and it’s inter library loan system that allows me access to 70 or so libraries in my area for all of the latest fiction and non fiction releases.
I will also by new hardcover books from Barnes and Noble or the Strand from my favorite authors. My library will also have these new release books, but I usually want them the day that they are released and also to support my favorite living author’s.

Interested in knowing what you mean by goal posts. I understand why you didn't explain or get too in-depth because you want to get through all of the comments, but I'm not sure what you mean. What goal posts are people exactly moving that they wouldn't move for other films, and on that note, where is the goal post usually?

Edit: I know you mentioned that people seem to have a "dog in the race" with McCarthy, thus, they move the post. Maybe I'm misinterpreting, or your explanation isn't working itself out in my brain, but it didn't really explain anything for me. I suppose I would need examples so as to know what it is exactly, but I get that that's a reach for me to ask for so I won't, but your reasoning makes it difficult for me to see where you come from besides your inherent dislike of his work.

I buy new books quite often at Waterstones but I also have a large amount of debt. I think that speaks for itself.

I think secondhand bookshops in uk were disappearing at 500 per year, now I see the occasional one opening. Devon is poorly supplied by new book shops, just Waterstones in bigger towns.

I read Dostoyevsky's "The Brothers Karamazov " in the P&V translation recently. It was dire, and much of the English was clunky. I can't wait for my Katz edition to arrive. UK release is in the autumn.

Abebooks are owned by Amazon, but feature second hand sellers, if you are careful they can be excellent. I often buy from them, and keep a record of the good ones. I recently went to one of their sellers in Norfolk and spent £150 , but that was boxes in our car boot and a box sent to my home. I bought lots of older books for extraordinary low prices. The nearest I have been to your Brattle experiences. Sorry, I'm only half Scots.

I recently went into a b&n and attempted to find that new translation of the dao de qing you mentioned. No one knew what i was talking about and i felt a bit of a twat.
Libraries rock. I dont need to own to enjoy, and there are few greater pleasures than letting random things catch your eye and imagination. I used them when chain stores carried more interesting things to me, i use them now.
The rest come from library book shops (if you havent wandered out to wayland's perpetual basement sale you really should), library yearly sales, thrift shops, etc, where I'm often graced by favorite reads to own, or gift, or as you say take a flier on cause its a buck.
But what's the way forward? Because without those prices they would likely be even more reluctant than they already are to take chances; print would become entirely and only mass appeal and where would we be then...
If the alternative is returning to the middle ages where books were luxury items, and the impetus was to print what a variety of people truly believed should exist in the literary world, I think i choose that over being able to afford books i don't want to read

Shame I missed it! Some thoughts:
Amazon secondhand market used to be amazing around 10 years ago, now it’s garbage, because of how they changed the site (putting all versions of a book under the same listing—awful for all books, new releases/re-releases included, no recommendations, very little to NO information on what you are buying), ebay is better but getting expensive (and brexit pretty much killed it for me, a 10 pound book can have 40 pounds postage cost or more)

I haven’t bought retail in the past 2-3 years

I use mostly ebay, thrift, charity shops for second hand books
Amazon for new books/ebooks

Whenever possible I buy books from used booksellers online. While I buy new books at my local independent bookstore, I would guess that is only about 10 percent of my purchases. I buy at least 70+ books per year. Also read books from the Chicago Public Library. As for McCarthy - his best (Suttree or Blood Meridian) are classics at the same level as Faulkner, Melville, or James.

I am using the library a lot more now. I can download ebooks from my local libraries - they "return" themselves on time, which is really, really great thing for me. The best thing about the library is that I can read the book to see if I like it enough to own a copy, before I spend any money.
Pasadena has a great indie bookstore (Vroman's) which is popular. It has a wonderful selection (especially in the genres I like). That's where I buy most of my new books.
There was a Barnes & Noble here, but it closed. It was an okay bookstore but the competition from Amazon and Vroman's is so much better that B&N closed and moved to Hollywood.
There is a decent used bookstore, but its best selection is vinyl. Amazon has more used book selections in the areas I like.

I enjoy what you have to say, and really enjoy listening to other listeners.

I am too late to comment really, but I like secondhand books when I can spend a bit of time rummaging around for unexpected books. But lately I have gone to a really good bricks and mortar bookshop i love in the U.K. it is too far away from me so I buy online from them and it takes just one day longer than Amazon to get to me. It is a sort of halfway house. I visit the nearby city far less since covid, I just realised life goes on without going into the city. So I guess that’s what has led to me going into the bookshop less. Also I find the bookshops in the city have more and more stationery, jigsaws, birthday cards, gimmick toys etc. I don’t get the bookshop experience as much..

I remember in the 1980s, as a kid, trying to digitize my own books onto my computer because I thought computer books would be so much better. Between that and trying to record my own audiobooks on an old tape-recorder, I think I've been waiting my entire life to finally arrive at this point in time. Physical books are not even a thought for me anymore.