I started thinking more and more often that I love reading so much that I can read about 10 books in a month and remember them perfectly, but since I have a dream of my own home library, I can’t afford to just rent a book. Thus, I have to buy a lot of books by hand or in stores, and only now I realized that in a month it can take from $ 100 just for my hobby.
When I first started diving into this, I didn’t think that traveling in my head would have to be paid for in this amount, but unfortunately I can’t stop anymore and this forces me to buy more and more books.
by jessysjoness
30 Comments
You can get discarded donations from libraries. Or free ARC copies in exchange for honest reviews.
It often takes years to write a book. Those ten books you read each month? It took a long time to create each of those ten worlds, distilled between two covers.
Reading is the cheapest hobby there is, it can be done without spending a dime (libraries, free epub classics). What you’re describing is buying and collecting stuff, in this case books. Of course that’s going to cost.
It’s only expensive because, as you say, you want to own a home library. Reading books isn’t expensive, it’s the collecting that is.
Read library books. Keep a list of the ones you want in your library when you can afford them.
Some details here:
https://www.salon.com/2002/12/03/prices/
That is, buyers end up paying for books plus those that are unsold and returned, and the need to offer discounts may be driving up the price (such that buyers end up paying the same amount). Other reasons involve distribution (the cost of shipping them from place to place), putting them in warehouses, etc.
Libraries are your friend
I usually borrow from the library because yes, they’re so expensive.
If I wanted books in my shelf, I get from Buy Nothing Group. And if I don’t like the books enough to keep, I trade them in little free libraries
I think I spent around 40€ on reading in the last couple of years, and that’s just library fees.
Get Libby (or a similar app) for free library ebooks too! Also second hand book shops are often 1/4 of the price and great to support local businesses. A lot have surprisingly good quality stock.
You can get a library card for free, but if it’s about owning the books I highly recommend thrift stores and thrift books (website). I have a large floor to ceiling bookshelf that is almost full and I would guess only about five of them I spent my own money on new. The rest of them were either gifts or thrifted. I often find books on my TBR for less than 5 dollars doing this. Hope it helps!
The fuck you mean, you can’t go to the library? You don’t spend a lot of money because you read as a hobby, you spend a lot of money because of that home library dream, total different things dude.
Books are expensive? Try shelf space. Attractive shelves are never cheap plus you need the actual space. There’s next to no aftermarket for books either. Used book stores have such a low margin they cannot afford to collect your old books or pay you anything but a small fraction of the purchase price.
I spend literally maybe 10 bucks on books a year from thrift stores.
Library my friend.
is 10$ for 1 book really expensive?
are you serious
Books are actually still super cheap if you take a historic view. Anne Trubek of Belt Publishing wrote an interesting article on this. A copy of Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters was sold in 1959 for $4. That’s $37 when adjusting for inflation. Maya Angelou’s Singing and Swinging was sold in 1976 for $42 after adjusting for inflation. Then The Road was sold in 2006 for $32 (inflation-adjusted). It’s an interesting read. She says conglomeration is a major factor in driving book price down. But I also wonder if books just appear to be more expensive because we aren’t accounting for inflation, like, I’m surprised at the costs of meals nowadays too
There are tons of ways to cut down on the cost, anyway. Don’t buy new books. You can get cheap used copies at Ebay, ThriftBooks, BetterWorldBooks, AbeBooks, estate sales or Friends of the Library sales
Here’s the article, but I think it’s paywalled: [Books are Cheap](https://notesfromasmallpress.substack.com/p/books-are-cheap)
You’re conflating reading with collecting. Collecting is expensive. Reading isn’t.
>When I first started diving into this, I didn’t think that traveling in my head would have to be paid for in this amount
It doesn’t. Reading is a very cheap hobby; libraries are your friend. You’re talking about your hobby of collecting books. That’s a totally valid hobby but entirely different from reading and does usually cost quite a bit. But if you’re after “traveling in your head” that’s easily completely free.
I had a home library, once upon a time. I had some 2000-ish books, most of which were hardcover, that I had collected over many years. One day, I looked at this hoard and realized I was never going to read most of them again, and they were heavy, and difficult to move, and took up a huge amount of space.
I gave almost all of them away by hauling them down to a local park and putting up a “FREE BOOKS” sign. I made a lot of people very happy, including myself.
Now, I have a single bookcase with a few favorites and do almost all of my reading via the public library. I do still buy a few books here and there, but always a Kindle edition.
All books are available for free on the internet
Books are $5 each give or take if you get them used. Even cheaper if you can find deals and discounts.
Labour goes into the things we consume, that is why they have a price.
If you don’t want to spend money in the bookstore but want a home library, you can either purchased used books or look for ways to get books for free at yard sales, little free librarys etc.
Inexpensive books are out there.Hardcover and paperback. Libraries have bookstores.Thrift sales and yard sales. I think it’s more fun because you do not know what you will find to read. Going into a bookstore is boring
Consider that an author gets 8 to 10 % of the market price, which is about $1.50 from a $20 book. Do you call it too much?
World of Books, charity shop scalping, book swaps, libraries, there’s plenty if ways to reduce the cost of books provided your willing to accept less that perfect books (or characterful books, as I prefer to think of them)
Tbh, the issue seems to be you wanting a library. Without that, reading is incredibly inexpensive especially when you consider dollar per hour. You have the library, and with an eraser you have Libby and all kinds of free or next to free books. Even on Amazon you can find collections of classics and foundational works in just about any genre for $2.00 or less that you can download
When I was younger with so much more free time I would check out as many books as I could find at the library, this was pre-internet in the 90’s. I would check out 8-13 books for two weeks for most of my summers. Then, I would track my favourites and ask for those for presents or buy them when I could. Now, I tend to buy kindle books as inexpensive as possible and buy any books I love as a physical copy for my bookshelf.
I moved countries and I still have a box of books I am slowly bringing to my new country as I only brought two checked bags and a carry on when I moved.
Sadly, it’s expensive because you live in the US. Prices for physical books in North America are ridiculous.
Just ask other people what they spend on their hobbies and realise that $100 is not expensive.