Expensive books

[Katya]

http://theboard.byu.edu/questions/59024/

Anyone else want to answer?

[Whistler]

yes.

Recent purchases: In a store in Japan town we accidentally bought a picture book for $50. Oops. At least the pictures are gorgeous! An old edition of Andersen's fairy tales cost me $35 (it was an old Windermere edition that reminded me of my mom's collection of Grimm's fairy tales).

The most expensive book I have ever wanted is this Rodney Smith art book (http://theendofrodneysmith.com/thepurchase.html). I wanted it, saw the price, and then tried to forget I ever wanted it. $800 for one admittedly awesome art book? Ridiculous.

[Tao]

Hmmm, most expensive in the room I'm in right now: I've got my Biblia Hebraica secundum editiones that was printed in 1875. Sadly, it was actually cheaper than the Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia, which was what I was looking for.

Not sure what book I payed most for overall. Scriptures surely rank up there a ways.

[Kissables]

$56 - my set of scriptures

Other than that, I think the most I have spent is $40, and that was a book on genetics. It wasn't for school or anything, just for fun.

[Katya]

Well then, I'll just keep my recent $200 book purchase to myself.

[bobtheenchantedone]

I don't usually spend a lot on one book, mostly because I buy all of my books at the BYU Bookstore where I get a discount (thanks, dad!) and then I buy on Saturdays with the sales and get the further 25% off. So my most expensive book probably cost me about $15-$20 but really cost about twice that. Also, I've been known to spend over $200 on books at one time.

[NerdGirl]

Yeah, I've certainly spent well over $200 dollars on non-school-related books at a single time. But I think the most I've ever spent on one particular book was about $60, although I can't even remember what book it was now.

[Whistler]

Well then, I'll just keep my recent $200 book purchase to myself.

what was it?

[Katya]

Well then, I'll just keep my recent $200 book purchase to myself.

what was it?

The New Oxford Book of Carols in hardback. I think the original list price was closer to $100, but it's out of print, so I had to pay extra. And I have a dictionary and grammar book that ran me $100, each.

[thebigcheese]

Scriptures might win for me too, although I've bought a lot of reference books that have cost me some pretty pennies. Usually in the neighborhood of 50 bucks.

Sometimes I go-a-browsing in the BYU Bookstore and I buy textbooks for fun. My husband does it too. Does anyone else do that, or are we weirdos?

[Marduk]

I tend to buy very few books on my own. Even then, most are paperbacks. I've never seen the point of spending nearly double when the information contained is exactly the same.

[mic0]

@thebigcheese I'm considering buying a few textbooks from the BYU Bookstore for fun. There are just so many great texts there, especially for language learning.

[TheAnswerIs42]

I think I've mentioned before that I got my "don't buy books, borrow them" mentality from my mother. But last week she came to visit and even made me gasp. Apparently when she is traveling she doesn't want to deal with hauling books across the country and back to the library, so she just buys some random paperback from the grocery store. And then when she was done reading it, she threw it in the garbage.



I guess she doesn't ever pay very much for books.

I have spent $30-40 on books before, if they are books I really wanted, but I guess that is my limit. I just can't fathom randomly tossing them out like that. . .

[thebigcheese]

I think I've mentioned before that I got my "don't buy books, borrow them" mentality from my mother.

Interesting. I got my "buy as many books as you possibly can" mentality from my mother. I haven't read half of them...

[bobtheenchantedone]

I got my "buy as many books as you possibly can" from my dad. He's not allowed to go to DI anymore. Though it's due to DI that we have three copies of an out-of-print book that starts at about $50 on ebay.

Also, only some of the books in my last purchase haven't been read yet. I don't know what happened with that one; I've always quickly read all the books every other time.

[Katya]

I tend to buy very few books on my own. Even then, most are paperbacks. I've never seen the point of spending nearly double when the information contained is exactly the same.

True, but sometimes format does make a difference. I splurged for the hardback Christmas carols book because the paperback format wouldn't lie flat on a piano music stand, which is a big deal for a score.

[Katya]

Also, only some of the books in my last purchase haven't been read yet. I don't know what happened with that one; I've always quickly read all the books every other time.

When it comes to books that are meant to be read cover to cover, I tend to check them out from the library before I buy them, so I don't own a lot of books I haven't read. I do, however, own a ton of reference books that aren't designed to be read straight through. (Although that hasn't always stopped me . . .)

[thebigcheese]

I tend to check them out from the library before I buy them

Oh wise Katya, teach me of your ways.

[Katya]

I tend to check them out from the library before I buy them

Oh wise Katya, teach me of your ways.

Ha! Well, it helps a ton that I work at a library, because picking out a new book to read just means heading out into the stacks before my lunch break. (Likewise, I can pick up inter-library loans whenever.)

But basically, I keep a list of all the books I hear about that are interesting to read, I have them tagged by whether or not they're at my library, and when I want to read a new one, I check the list and see what sounds interesting. I usually have a couple going at once, because I want something to read while I'm waiting for ILL books to come in and I have to be patient about not getting to read bestsellers right away. To be honest, if I didn't work at a library, I'd probably buy more books, but I think I'd still borrow much more than I buy.

[bobtheenchantedone]

When I worked in the BYU Bookstore I was always checking books out (yes, we could check out the merchandise, and it was awesome). I would also keep a couple of books in the back (ones we had extras of) and read a page or two while munching on a snack.