Book buying

Yesterday, S and I went off to Borders. While we both have reservations about shopping in such a big chain, especially a non-Australian one, there are some books that we can't get anywhere else. And did I ever get the most beautiful poetry anthology. Of course, most of the books I bought were for work, but I just love getting in there and browsing in the technical section. S and I have large collections of books on writing. The only person I've ever known with a bigger writing-books collection was a friend and fellow-teacher.

Our friend passed away several years ago, and her husband decided to invite her friends around for a second-hand book sale that was going to be by invitation only. Were we ever excited. And salivating at the prospect. Don't get me wrong -- we were very sorry that our friend died, but this was a good half year or more later so had gone through the grieving process. In the end, an institution she worked at offered a greater sum of money than we could've scrabbled together to buy the collection en masse and to establish it as a collection in her name. A far better legacy, truth be told, than being sold and divided among all her friends, no matter how grateful we would've been. For us, it was never about saving money -- just about perusing books that we might not otherwise have seen. Anyway, it is lovely to think she has her own collection out there.

Now, the guilty secret of yesterday -- apart from the fact that I got so carried away that I bought a book I already had, is that then I went home and placed an Amazon order. And if that weren't bad enough, then I placed a second one. Yeah, I know -- it's more postage that way, but one of the books was a second-hand book, and it was the first time I've used the used-books facility. Funny thing was my first order was processed in AUDs, but I didn't have that option for the second.

I stuffed up the used-book order the first few times, because the cheapest books that I could find were from sellers who didn't offer overseas shipping. It took me awhile to realise this. I ended up having to pay an extra $10 US, for the book, but it was still cheap. Now I just have to wait until the books arrive. Won't be too long. (I confess, I don't mind waiting, and much preferred the old days where you could select actual shipping. Though it took several months it was much much cheaper. I do think it's a bit unfair that people in the US can get free shipping, and we don't get any sort of discount. For a while, when Amazon stopped offering ships as an option, I switched to Barnes and Noble, because their shipping was so much cheaper, but then they too did away with this type of shipment, and so priced themselves out of the market for me.)

I do so love buying books -- just wish I had more money to do it with! Now all I need is an extra three bookcases. Oh, and somewhere to put them!