E-Books, New Books, Cheap Books, Free Books

My love affair with books started when I was a young child. I didn't have a lot of books, but the ones I did have, I loved... sometimes to death! As I grew older, I discovered the literary treasures within the local public library. There were so many books there! So much to read. So much to explore. Weekend trips to the library saw me stagger home with piles of books.

El Blanco - The Legend
of the White Stallion
(My favourite Scholastic
Book Services book!)

When I entered school, I was quickly seduced by the Scholastic Book Services. Twice a year, we would receive an order form and a paper catalogue with pictures and summaries of children's books. I happily chose book after book - within reason of course. My mother was quite happy to encourage my love of reading and so, over the years, my book collection grew.

The Hardy Boys. Science Fiction. Westerns. Historical Fiction. Mysteries. I loved them all. When I went to university, I could spend hours wandering the cramped stacks of the main library. All of my course textbooks I bought new at the university bookstore. I spent hundreds, probably thousands of dollars on textbooks. I could have bought used textbooks, as the bookstore had a buy-back program, but I always wanted new books. I loved that fresh, crisp "new book" smell... and the thought that no-one else had messed up the book with dog-ears, highlighter or pen marks.

As the years passed, moving became more and more cumbersome. I had a lot of books - both fiction and non-fiction. I also had a lot of bookshelves. Anyone who has packed and unpacked books, knows that they take up an inordinate number of boxes... and they are heavy! In the world of moving, weight = money. But I really didn't care.

Eventually, however, I outgrew some of my books and began to pare them down. I got rid of my university textbooks. I let go of paperback books that I knew I would never read again. Every year, I let go of a little bit more and it began to make a difference. Another big difference was the advent of e-books, an invention that I resisted for many years. I liked the feel of real paper in my hands. I liked being able to flip quickly through a book. I liked the tangibleness of a real book. But I also saw the benefits of an e-book reader, of having thousands of books at my fingertips.

Lawrence Books, Vancouver.
Best "haystack" in the West.

Fast-forward to today. Over the course of the past year, I have bought about two dozen books.

Most of them came from used bookstores. While I turned up my nose at used textbooks during university, I have since come to discover the joys of used bookstores. You never know what you might find! The books are cheap(er). And some used bookstores will even let you trade in your old books for credit towards their books. But good luck if you are looking for a specific book. That is rather akin to looking for a needle in a haystack... and you're not even sure the needle is in that particular haystack!

Luckily, there is something called AbeBooks, an online marketplace for used books. Used bookstores from around the world post their books online. You can search by title or author and within seconds you have access to the book you seek. You can find new books, old books and out-of-print books. Best of all, the prices are very reasonable, even with shipping and handling. AbeBooks is a great invention and has made it easy to find and buy a specific used book. The only problem with AbeBooks is that the book has to be shipped to you which can take a week or 6 weeks, depending on whether it is being shipped from Vancouver, BC or from Oxford, England.

I have also purchased several e-books and one new book from Chapters/Indigo/Kobo this year. I read the new book and then passed it along to my mother who I thought would enjoy it as well. That is one of the perks of real books, you can actually share them with others. I have often re-gifted books that I have bought in the past. As long as I'm not too hard on the books, they look as good as new and no-one needs to be the wiser.

The ebooks were judicious purchases. I have a rather limited library on my e-book reader and I wanted to buy some of my most favourite fiction books so that I could take them with me easily. It's a great system but I sometimes forget what books are actually on my e-book reader. It's much easier to scan a bookshelf and see what I have than it is to tab through various screens on the e-book reader.

The end result is that I am happy to report that I am paring down my book collection. The net flow of books into and out of the house is improving. While I bought several physical books this year, I let go of many more. I have a vision of a future in which packing up our house will not be an onerous process... and reducing the books is part of that.

The only problem with this lovely scenario is that e-books, new books and even cheap books all cost money. And there are many, many books out there that I want to read. I have a rather substantial "to-read" list of books from all sorts of genres. My original idea was that I would buy them in the not-so-distant future... but now I am not so sure. You see... I have decided to rediscover the joys of my local public library.

Things are very different in public libraries nowadays. You can search their entire catalogue online, place a hold on a book, or request one via inter-library loan, all with the click of a few buttons. Today I spent a happy 30 minutes going through my "to-read" list and placing holds on several of the books. The rest went onto a virtual bookshelf in my library account. When I am ready, I can revisit them and request them as well. And all of this is free. Well... not really free... I do pay property taxes which means that my tax dollars are funding the library. But... I pay these tax dollars whether I use the library or not. And there is no limit, at least not one that I know of, to the number of books that I can request or borrow from the library. It's really a win-win situation. I get to read the books that I want... and spend $0.

The only problem with the library... and with AbeBooks for that matter is this... I have to wait for the book(s). Putting a hold on a book or requesting a book from another branch means that I have to wait several days, sometimes weeks for the book to arrive. And in some cases, the book is sooooo popular at that particular moment that the library doesn't have enough copies to go around. For example, the local library has 5 copies of Marie Kondo's book "The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying up" - the hottest decluttering book of 2014. I had read several news articles which offered glowing reviews of the book and decided that I would read it. I thought I might buy it... but then decided to borrow it from the library. I placed a hold on the book and I am #90 in line... that is correct - ninety... nine zero. People have a week to pick up a book that is on hold for them. They can borrow the book for three weeks. A few calculations... 5 copies... 90th in line... the earliest I might get it is 20 weeks from now... the latest I might get it is 72 weeks from now. At this rate, I will probably end up reading the book in 2016. I'll let you know how it goes.

All of this has made me realize that the main benefit of buying e-books and new books is the delightful feeling of instant gratification. If I want the book NOW... I can have it now... or within an hour if I drive to the bookstore. If I order a used book or request a book through the library, I will have to wait and counsel myself on the joys of delayed gratification. All of which makes me think that my book dilemma is really just a symptom of society at-large. We have become used to the idea of instant gratification. I can check my email on my smartphone, instantly. I can pick up the phone and talk to my relatives in Europe, instantly. I can book my own flights on line, instantly. I can take pictures on my camera, load them into my computer and view them, all in a flash. I can email them to my mother and even print them out on photo paper.

If we want something NOW... we can generally have it now. Gone are the days when you would ship away a roll of film to the Kodak lab and wait for a week until the photographs came back. Gone are the days even of one-hour photo-developing labs. Gone are the days when you would write weekly letters back home and consign them to Canada Post. Now, you can text, email, Skype... instantly. Some say that Canada Post is dying. Will libraries soon follow? There has been some angst around that in recent years and libraries are trying to re-invent themselves as community hubs, learning spaces or learning commons. They have jumped on the e-book bandwagon and you can now borrow e-books and even e-magazines through your local library.

Perhaps the real benefit for me in frequenting my local library is not saving of money... but rather rediscovering the self-discipline of delayed gratification. According to research at Stanford, children who could delay gratification grew into adults who scored higher on SAT tests, handled stress better, were less likely to be obese and generally had better life skills. Which begs the question... if we train our children to expect instant gratification, are we actually doing them a favour?