“Where Do I Buy My Books?” Or Rather, Me, Myself and Books

A friend asked me: where do I buy my books?

This simple question has caused me to probe further into my relationship with books and reading hobby.

For instance, I just realized that saying I’m a ‘book’ fan, is somewhat inaccurate. I prefer to say that I’m a fan of reading materials. Be it a conventional book, an e-book, a stack of papers of unbundled printed drafts, the amount of fun and excitement in reading them is equal. I might guess that even if I read them in a giant billboard, I will read it anyway as long as it’s interesting to me.

Another realization is that I’m a picky book buyer. Surprisingly, this happened since I was in elementary school when what I bought were only translated mangas. I bought mangas based on its theme, and the older I got, I bought them based on the author and finally, based on the publisher (or in manga case, I look for the magazine which published the serial before it turned into tankoubons).

For me, publisher is like a reliable semi-curator. If I like several books published by them, chances are their other books will have the same taste. So, I can test my luck and buy any book they published, and won’t regret it. Publishers also tend to have a certain basic theme, and even authors of certain genre, pooled into their place. Again, this will increase the possibility that I might like their upcoming books and discovered new great authors. Fantastic.

Author is pretty self-explanatory. Every one has their own favorite authors and you will religiously buy their writings in whatever form they came.

Theme is also pretty classic. But it’s no longer an essential factor to me, since now I’m trying to leave my comfort dystopian/thriller/fantasy zone and start to diverse my reading.

I also prefer to buy non fictions in hardcopies rather than fictions, because I usually only read fiction once while I can read non fictions many, many times.

And so, to answer the question of where do I my books? Or perhaps, where do I get my reading materials?

1. I rent them from libraries. Especially for reference books which I only need for a certain period of time (writing thesis, presentation materials, etc.). Also for light novels, in which I rent them from national public digital library. And for rare and niche books, such as religion-themed books.

2. I subscribed. My novels and literatures mostly came from Gramedia and Bookmate premium membership. Currently, I’m planning to subscribe to And Other Stories publisher since they published awesome books (hardcopies, not ebooks).

3. I downloaded from Project Gutenberg. For classic fiction ebooks. Some non fictions are here as well.

4. I read on CCEL.org. For Christian classic ebooks. Wonderful resource. You need to pay to read in an ebook form, but their website is very convenient for reading, so no problem.

5. I bought ebooks on Amazon.com. I’m a Kindle owner, so I mostly bought my ebooks here. I tend to buy non-fiction spiritual ebooks whenever the Daily or Monthly Deals come up.

6. I bought hardcopies from independent book shops. My favorite is Post Santa, with some other online books shops. These are the perfect place to find new, fresh, anti mainstream fictions and narrative non fictions reading which will keep yourself happy.

Also, worth noting here, e-newsletters from your favorite book stores/publishers/websites might lead you to discover new books/publishers/stores. Subscribe wisely according to your preference lest your inbox got flooded.

So, that’s pretty much all I can say about where I got my books. Still looking for another resources, though, if any.