I recently joined a book club which is great fun but can start to get expensive buying new books all the time-especially as most of the members are keen on the latest best sellers which of course haven’t come out in a cheaper copy yet. So a friend of mine and I decided that we split the cost of the book and share it. One person reads it, then lends it to the other person to read and by the time the book club meeting comes around we have both read the book. Now we also check out the local library for the book first but its usually already been taken out (probably by one of our other club members!) and we have found that usually one of us wants to keep the book anyways at the end. We split the cost and cut down one less tree.
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This is a great idea. The other thing I do now is when I’m done reading a book I either donate or sell it. There are very few books that I want to keep anymore; I used to keep all my favourite books, figuring I’d reread them at some point, but as the decades rolled by and I read new books instead of going back to the old ones, I realized that I probably never will reread most of them. And if I do want to reread them, there’s always the library. I’ve downsized my book collection by about 70% over the past 10 years and every year I go through and get rid of even more. So now when I’m done reading a book I first try to sell it on Amazon.ca, and if that doesn’t work I donate it. If I can’t find an organization to take it, it goes to the recycling center. I’ve tried selling books to used bookstores but they often don’t take all of them and I just don’t have time to go trolling around from one bookstore to the next. Amazon works well for selling books, and at least I know the book has found a new home.
Great idea here on Amazon Brad. Never thought of doing this. My Mom and her brothers swap books at family gatherings – box at a time. Saves them 1/3 of what they would pay to buy books (they usually get used ones for $1 or $2). I don’t keep a ton of books but likely too many. I really like some of the ones i’ve got but i’m sure I could get rid of a bunch as well.
I think the other benefit to that is it must really motivate you to read the books quickly. I will have to tell my wife to try and find a group like this around here.
I’ve given away a lot of my books. I sometimes get the itch to read old books that I read many years ago and have forgotten much of the storyline about, but by giving them away I can redirect my energy toward new books. I won’t give everything away but it does help to reduce clutter, especially with the types of books that you’ll read once and probably not come back to again.