Musing Mondays

Today’s MUSING MONDAYS post is about book stores…

How do you choose what do buy from your local bookstore? Do you have a list, or just browse? What is the selection in your book store like? Do you find what you're looking for? Do you feel pressured to buy the kind of books the store makes prominent? (question courtesy of MizB)

Unfortunately, in my small town the only book store we have is a Christian Book store and it mainly caters to the church and religious organizations. Now I do enjoy an occasional religious book, but it is hard for me to find recreational reading in my hometown. There is also the local Wal-Mart, but they only carry the top 10 bestsellers, so if you're looking for something out of the main stream, then you're out of luck.

I will ocassionally go into Lexington - maybe once or twice a year - and when I do, I typically visit Joseph-Beth Books. They have a wide assortment of reading material for all tastes. But since it is a rare ocassion for me to visit Jo-Beth's, what's a girl to do to get her reading fix?

Probably 90% of the books I buy are from the used store at Amazon.Com. I used to buy all new books from Amazon, but now they have some wonderful sellers who specialize in "hardly used" books. I can get these books for very little and I have yet to be disappointed!

My hubby is also good at finding used books on eBay. Several of my Christmas presents came from eBay this year. This site is especially good for finding those hard-to-locate books on your list.

Of course, I also buy used books from my local public library. They don't have a very large selection, but ocassionally I will run upon a find - like the first edition hardcover of Interview With A Vampire by Anne Rice. I already owned the book, but I couldn't resist a first edition - and believe or not, it was in fairly good condition.

No matter where I shop for books, I don't let the store dictate what I buy. I normally have a continual running list of books I'm looking for and I try to stick to this, although I'm ocassionally persuaded by a beautiful book cover. For the most part, I've done my homework and I know which books and which authors I'm looking for.