Earlier today I went out and was doing some shopping. I stopped by both Best Buy and the nearby Barnes & Noble, but found myself wishing for the cheaper prices found online. I think Amazon has given me a dislike for paying MSRP for items that I don’t necessarily need right away. These places are good for browsing, but I don’t know that I’ll really buy from them unless I have a dire urge or a really good coupon.
While I was out and about, I decided to take a detour to one of the local Half Price Books. I had meant to go to one, but never found the reason to do so until today. After visiting there, I wish I had discovered that reason before. I loved the selection of books I found there, and most of them were in remarkably good quality for used books. (I compare that to my experiences at library book sales where books range from good to pretty darn poor.) In addition, I found a lot of books that I’m not sure I would find at other places, and I paid good prices for them. For instance, I had seen a copy of Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude at B&N as part of a Buy 2, Get 1 Free sale. I would have paid about $10 for that copy, but I found it on sale at Half-Price for a buck.
They also offer a service where they purchase media (books, DVDs, software, etc.) from you. I’m sure I could send in a lot of my excess books there, but I don’t think that I’d get a whole lot of money for my books. Besides, I’d much rather give them to the library so they can use the funds to support their programming. Ultimately, too, I also can’t find a place where I can get a better deal for books than at those book sales; whether it be 25 cents for trade paperbacks or a bag of books for $8, they definitely provide a way to fill up my bookshelves. If only I had more bookshelves and more time to get through the books I have…
