My Reading Nook

As an avid reader, I go through a LOT of books.

That means I also spend a lot of money on them, so I wanted to share with you some of the places I get my books from.

Of course your local library is a great source of reading material that shouldn’t cost you anything but taxes. But not all of us are located close to one or the hours it’s available don’t coincide with our own (my case), so we have to resort to other sources to feed our addiction to the printed page.

Flea markets and yard sales are a great source for reading material. I don’t know about you, but my shelves are bulging with books I’ve read. Since I seldom re-read a book, I might as well pass it along to someone else and selling them at the flea market or at a yard sale provides others with a means of getting books at a reduced price. You can expect to pay anywhere from 10¢ upwards for a paperback and $1 and up for hard backs.

Thrift stores are another source of inexpensive reading materials. Since that’s where many of my books get donated, I while I’m dropping some off, I often scour the shelves in search of an unread title. I usually pay about 20¢ for them at the store I frequent the most often.

Of course you may want more current titles than can be found at these two sources, so a sale at the book stores is an obvious place to find current titles at a good price. Do check out my Amazon links for another source of reasonably priced current titles.

I’ve also found Half.com has many of the books I’m looking for — especially those of a technical nature. I just received The Data Warehouse Lifecycle Toolkit by Ralph Kimball which is a $40 book and I paid $5.99 for it at Half.com! Although the book shows a bit of wear, it’s in excellent shape and even has the CD included!

Another great source of books is ebay. I’ve gotten whole collections of author’s books off ebay for $5 or $10!

So what are some of your best sources for reading material? Care to share them with us?