Buying Used Books

I don’t mean to be a bookstore snob, but buying used books was something many of us were doing before buying used books was cool, or I, or wise.  That is, buying used books was once a habit that was a well-kept secret of college students and bibliophiles.  They knew the visit to a used book shop would be much cheaper and would result, too, in a quiet, pleasant buying used books experience—maybe with wine, coffee, some unobtrusive music, maybe with a community cat or pup lolling about in the sweet dark corners of the lovely historical smell of heavy wood shelving and decades of ink and paper and thread.

Then buying used books became more difficult (and more frustrating a task), as the big chains shoved the little independents aside…or out.  So buying used books has become in one sense more of a challenge and in another sense an almost equally pleasurable (though different) experience…as we can now go online for new and used books.  I for one am delighted, for buying books online means saving time, still saving money, and…thankfully, for reclusive folks like myself, saving social interaction with noisy, neglectful, or annoying people out there...saves one’s sanity, really.Let me clarify.  I go to XXX (well known, top selling bookstore in the city) brick and mortar store (which also has an online bookstore, but I am in a hurry.  I have driven in rain and insane traffic, have limited time (as I am on a deadline), and have a definite title or set of titles in mind.  I walk into the brightly lit store and head for the periodicals—seeking a magazine published in the UK.  Seven people are in the aisle I need to access.  Three are LYING on the floor reading magazines they will not buy but will instead gunk up with their fingerprints, wrinkle with their greedy paws, and stain with their snot.  The other four are standing around, one on a cell phone and others scratching bugs out of their hair, giggling over nudies, or just &$$#93%# standing…IN MY WAY.  When did a store become a place to hang out, groom in, furtively steal FREE reading pleasures from, and impede actual shoppers with integrity in?  And further, where are the used books????

I hate the physical bookstore now, and go with only the online bookstores.  (Did I need to say that?)  Such vendors offer the same items they offer if they keep a physical sibling site but also offer hard-to-find, hard to get at in the land store, and hard to remember titles—usually used.  I probably do not have to name the said bookstores/vendors, the big, popular ones, any more than I had to name the one with all the losers, slackers, and nutcases, above, but if you need a nudge or best places for buying used books online, here are my favorites:

Powells.com- One of the world’s largest bookstores.  A city block long and stories high, when you go to the actual store in Oregon (which I wouldn’t mind doing, actually), they hand you a MAP…the store is so big and so full of millions of books.

Ebay.com – look for a title, using the search engine at EBay, or check out my favorite online bookstores, where vendors as far away from me (in the U. S.) as the UK ship within only a few days!  These folks are Dadoak1bookshop (dadoak1).

GreenAppleBooks.com – My favorite used (and new) bookstore in the Bay Area.  The antithesis of the nightmare chain bookstore I refer to above…and therefore a true pleasure as a physical shop, but equally helpful, easy to access, and affordable (new and used) online bookstore, too.

Word Power (word-power.co.uk/about_us) – a completely independent online bookstore, receiving no state or other funding to advertise, sell, or sustain, so check them out!

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