This is how we buy our books, buy our books, buy our books...

[bibliogramma]

In which the writer rambles on at length about her method of selecting books for purchase, and invites similar ruminations from her gentle readers, should they be so inclined.

I used to just drop into bookstores whenever I had some money that I didn’t need for rent or food, and buy all the books I saw that looked interesting. But for the past five or six years now, my disabilities have prevented me from actually going out to stores and buying books in such a spontaneous fashion. Now I buy mostly online. Sometimes, in-store special coupons arrive, or our local independent science fiction bookstore is having a sale because they’re overstocked on used books, or whatever, and my partner goes and looks for books for me, but about 80 percent of my current bookbuying is done on line.

Because of this change in the manner of my bookbuying, there have slowly evolved some changes in the manner in which I select the books I buy. Because it’s not a spontaneous act anymore, I first started keeping a list of books I wanted to read, so I’d remember what I wanted when it came time to sit down and place a book order. The list started to grow, and I began to realise that this list could be more than a simple reminder of things I wanted to order. It could actually be a way of shaping my reading. I could go in search of books that catered to my interests rather than just reading books I’d heard about somewhere or books by my favourite authors.

Over time, then, I have assigned myself a number of “projects” with respect to reading – they’re not quite so closely held as to be goals, nor are they, precisely, guidelines, but they are things I want to take into account when I decide what books to buy in any given book order.

You see, I buy on a budget. Digression: I didn’t always do this. For a very large part of my life, I was poor (by choice, to some extent – I was very resistant about going into the corporate world where the money is) and bought books whenever I had extra money. Then I did find a corporate job I could cope with, and started having more disposable income as a result, and found myself buying a lot of books. Now not so poor, I slowly began to realise that if I continued spending all of my extra money on books, I would never have any money for other things I had also realised I wanted or needed. And then I went and bought this money-eating black hole known as a house. Hence, the budget, because otherwise, I could spend every cent I have to spare on books, which would seriously interfere with my ability to, say, pay for the new air conditioner or insulation in the basement or all the other things the house demands. End of digression.

So. I allow myself a certain amount of money to spend each month on books for my own reading pleasure. (Twice a year, I sort of get to cheat, because that’s when I buy birthday and Christmas presents for my partner, and our tastes are similar enough that at least half of the books I buy for him are also books I’d like to read. I am so evil. ) I allow myself some leeway to exceed my budget on special occasions – for instance, when a small press with a backlist full of books I want has a clearance sale, or something similar – because it’s always a good thing to have more books.

But for my regular monthly book shopping – which I do in one shot, usually, from my online bookseller of choice – here’s how I go about it. First. I look to see which of my several dozen “favourite writers ever” have something new out that month; that normally takes up about half of my monthly budget. Then I order one or two recently published books by authors new to me that have been highly recommended, or well-reviewed or otherwise generated enough of a buzz that I’ve heard about them and want to read them (recent Tiptree, Brandon or Lambda award winners, for example). Sometimes I’ll add a book or two that I’ve just run into somewhere that sounds interesting, often because it’s been mentioned on a blog I read or it’s a new release from one of the small presses that I often order from (and hence check up on their websites for new releases every once in a while) or pick a couple of books at random from my 34-page (in 9 point type with quarter-inch margins top and bottom) list of books I’d like to read some day.

With whatever money is left in my budget, I pick a couple of books based on the various projects I’ve adopted. These projects are:

* To read more books by writers from countries other than Canada, the U.S. and Great Britain
* To read more books by writers of colour
* To read more books by queer writers (that is to say, writers who are gay, bisexual, transgendered, two-spirited, or who otherwise identify as a member of a gender or sexual minority)
* To collect and re-read many of my favourite books from the past that have wandered away from my libraries over the years
* To finally read all the books that people have been recommending to me over the years but somehow I never got around to, or could find a copy (it’s so much easier to find out-of-print books now that there are so many places to order from online)
* To fill in some notable gaps in my “special interest” collections, such as Arthurian and Arthurian-inspired literature, utopic and dystopic fiction, the complete works of certain adored authors such as Ursula K. LeGuin, and the like.

Following this method certainly insures that I have a wide variety of new books to read each month, something to suit almost every mood. Which is a good thing, because unlike many readers, I can't just suddenly decide to go buy a book if I look around and don't happen to see anything I want to just just now already on my shelves somewhere.

Comments

[mishaslair.livejournal.com]

Most of my purchases are done by the "wander through the bookstore" method. I'll usually walk in with something specific in mind, but walk out with much more, especially if there are any good sales. I love wandering through bookstores. I'm sorry you're no longer able to do that.

Lately I've been buying books based on recommendations from a new(ish) friend who is very well-read and who has similar taste. I usually don't go wrong if I read something he likes. I've blown through most of Chuck Palahniuk's fiction that way in the last couple of months.

But generally, I've been on a book-buying binge after a long drought. I filled a three-shelf bookshelf within the last two months. As a result, I currently have more than 200 unread books in my apartment. Some of them are reference books I'll never sit and read, but a good 75 percent of them are just books I'm waiting to get to. I'm hoping for a nice, cold winter. :)

[morgan-dhu.livejournal.com]

Having placed myself on a budget, I'm actually managing to reduce the size of my recently purchased but unread books pile - right now there are perhaps 25 unread books ready to read, and maybe the same number that are still detoxing, so I won't be able to read them for many months in some some cases.

Fortunately, should I reach the point where my budget doesn't actually give me enough books to read in any given month and the recently purchased but unread books pile has disappeared, there are actually a goodly number of books that David brought into our library that I haven't read but might find interesting.

[calico-reaction.livejournal.com]

Interesting. I'm not quite on a budget, but close enough that I can't justify going to the store and spending cash on all the books that I've been eyeing just because the store has them. I started keeping a spreadsheet with the titles I bought each month, with a column of "read?" so that I have to go back and MARK the ones I've read as I've read them. My book-buying habits have dropped exponentially since I've started doing this, in part because I'm recognizing the tendency of wanting the book is not the same as wanting to read the book right that moment. That, and well, I'm trying to save a wee bit of money (as I'd love to remodel the guest room into an office). It's a good thing to do, and I'm slowly but surely starting to learn to be careful of the latest and greatest releases--to stop buying out of curiosity's sake, if that makes sense.

And with all the books I've got on my shelves, waiting to be read, I really have no excuse to go out and buy stuff just because I'm in the store. Of course, that won't always stop me, but it's a start. :)

[morgan-dhu.livejournal.com]

I'm slowly but surely starting to learn to be careful of the latest and greatest releases--to stop buying out of curiosity's sake, if that makes sense.

Yeah, it does.

Because I plan what I'll be buying each month in advance now, I do a lot of research on books that are from authors I don't know - and some on books that are from writers I know who are starting a new series, trying something that's a departure for them, and so on. Since I can't pick the book up and browse it before buying, I read as many reviews as I can find, first chapters or excerpts if they've been put on line, and so on.

Most of the books that come to my attention that I am sufficiently interested in to do research on, do so through reviews from people I've come to trust - like you - or conversations in various sff online communities. I also look at short lists for some of the awards, especially the Tiptree, the Lambda and now the Carl Brandon Society, as well as the more mainstream awards like the Hugo and the World Fantasy Award.

Mainstream and literary novels are more likely to come to my attention though the traditional media - there are a number of arts programs on TV that have interviews with writers of literary fiction (at least this is true in Canada), and then I go look for reviews.

Oddly enough, a lot of the non-fiction current affairs books I've been putting on my book list these days, I first heard of on the Daily Show and The Colbert Report. ;-)