Win a $20 Powells.com Gift Card!

Answer the following question in the comments under this post to be entered in a drawing to win a $20 Powells.com gift card.  To win you must provide a real first name and valid email address.

DEADLINE TO ENTER:  November 1.

The question: What motivates you to buy a book (vs. borrowing it from a friend or the library)?

Comments

[Alex Kaplan]

I'm not going to lie to you: this is a hard one to deconstruct. I have bought books that there's no way I rationally thought I was going to have the time or the desire to read, and I've checked and re-checked books out of the library that eventually ran up late fees that were more than a new copy would have cost. Some of my book purchases have been based on mood -- I'm sad to say that I do derive some pleasure from the simple act of buying a book -- and there are many books in my collection that come from a myriad of sources I have for sinfully-cheap used books. If I had to boil it down, though, to a distinction I could live with even though there are notable exceptions, I'd have to say that most of the books I have bought, that weren't part of a reading list for a course I was taking or teaching, were suggested to me by a live person whose judgement I thought at the time I trusted or were books by authors with whom I was already familiar. Books that are blithely mentioned in passing or come up in an article or book I'm reading go on the library list.

[Julie]

If I think I'll want to read it more than once, I'm more likely to buy it. I'm also much more likely to buy non-fiction titles, mainly because I rarely read fiction anymore.

[Carl Quesnel]

I buy books when I know it's likely I will destroy them through heavy use or when it will take me a very long time to read them. So I bought a guide book for Thailand and The Decameron, but I checked out Kureishi's The Body from the library. Most books are too overpriced these days to be worth buying. I mean, $6.98 for a sci-fi paperback?! C'mon....

[David]

I buy books if I can afford them and want to read them. It doesn't matter if I will only read them once, or even if I will never read,I just want them on my shelves.

Unfortunately as my wages increase I fear I shall have to use room as a criteria, only buying small, thin books.

[Josh]

There are four reasons I can come up with to buy a book:
1. I like the author enough, and trust the author enough, to buy the book “sight unseen.” At the moment, the only author I do this for is Neil Gaiman, though I’ve been buying the books in Scalzi’s “Old Man’s War” series in hardback, which ties to something else.
2. I hate owning an incomplete series. I think that if had gotten the first two or three Harry Potter books at the library, I would never have gone out of my way to buy the entire series. By the same token, though I like some Fletch novels more than others, I feel I must own them all because I own the ones that I really like.
3. I can’t get the book from some sort of “free” location. This doesn’t happen to me too often, as I’m part of two major library chains. But I own quite a few books about writing (and/or writers) that I couldn’t get for free.
4. The deal is just too good. Meaning, if I’m at a library sale, and I see a book I’d normally just check out from the library, but I can own it for fifty cents? I’ll just buy it, and that way, assuming I ever (ha!) run out of stuff to read at my house, it’ll just be there.

[Matthew Vincent]

Smell and reciprocity.

[Literanista]

I love books, have an extensive library ammassed and enjoy going back to my books for quotes or rereads. I rarely borrow books from the library but occassionaly I do borrow books from my friends, who know they lend them to me at their own risk since they might end up becoming part of my collection.

[Kristen (Pub Editor)]

These are great responses - thanks. I tend to buy books for many of the same reasons: if the price is right; if I know it'll take me a long time to read; if I'm going to be carrying it on travels. I tend to buy short fiction collections more than anything else, because I think of them as educational primers on the art form, and because I can easily go back and re-read isolated stories in under 1 hour if I know I want to read something diverting but I don't have the time/motivation to "get into" a novel.

It's rare for me to buy novels new unless I'm in a fix and need a book to help me pass the time (on an airplane; waiting for a friend somewhere public). Unless it's a classic I know I'll re-read (e.g. Dickens, Hardy), I worry there's a good chance a bought novel, especially trade paperback, might not be good enough to justify the $14 - $25 spent. Hardcover - fuggedaboutit. Too expensive, too bulky on the bookshelf, too hard to keep open without wrist strain, too annoying to deal with the jacket.

Lately my rule of thumb is:

I'll buy short story collections new. Some compilations, some single author.

I'll buy "reference books" new. (Which includes any non-fiction I think I might want to refer to in the future, such as writing-related books, diet books, cookbooks, etc.)

Almost anything else, I buy used or get from the library, strictly due to budgetary concerns. Unless the preheat on it is so great that I can't help but to pre-order due to old-fashioned impatience. (This is what I did with "The Ruins" by Scott Smith.)

I look forward to more responses -- still 11 days until the contest deadline!

[Nancy]

I tend to buy books that are 'classics' in some way or books that I know I'll want to re-read someday. I own series (Narnia, Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings) and selected novels that I've had a hard time putting down. On the flip side, I also buy books if they are on a great sale, or I need some lightweight reading for the airplane or a camping trip!

[Kristen (Pub Editor)]

Thanks for stopping by, Nancy! Lightweight reading is definitely a must for camping.