Book buying habits #amreading

I saw this blog post about book buying habits over at the Book Huntress and I thought it looked like fun. Err… That’s a bit of a lie. Easy. That’s the word that really came to mind. But I can do easy and fun, can’t I? Let’s see…

My Book Buying Habits

Where do you buy your books from?

Mostly Amazon. And before all you Amazon-haters get started just remember that I currently (2 more weeks!) live in a country that has hardly any English bookstores and the post takes several months to arrive, if it even bothers to arrive at all.

Do you ever pre-order books and if so do you do this in store or online?

I’ve pre-ordered books in the past for book club. At the time, I did this in stores. Now, I only pre-order books on the rare occasion that I’ve gotten sucked into a serial.

On average, how many books do you buy a month?

Um, do you want the answer I give my husband or the truth? At least 30 ebooks but probably a bit more than that. Just don’t ask me to define bit.

Do you use your local library?

I don’t even know where the library is in Istanbul. In Germany, I didn’t use the library either as it had very few English books. Most of the English books in the library (and the bookstores for that matter!) were the classics, which are required reading for high schoolers. No thanks. Been there. Done that.

What is your opinion on library books?

If I could find a library with English books (and not just the Penguin classics), I’d be ecstatic!

How do you feel about second hand books?

There used to be the awesome second hand bookstore chain in the Netherlands. It had an entire section with English books for a dollar or two. It was AWESOME! The store went out of business, which makes me very sad.

Do you keep your TBR pile on your main bookshelves or no?

Mostly on the normal bookshelf. Books that I’ve agreed to review, I put in a separate (virtual) shelf and then promptly forget about until I see the day of the review approaching on my agenda and then I freak out.

Do you plan to read all of the books you own?

Of course!

What do you do with books you feel you will never read/did not enjoy?

It really depends on why I didn’t enjoy it. If the book was poorly written and edited (as in not edited), I may write a review on Amazon about that. In general, I try to just move on. As a writer myself, I’m a bit biased on this point and I need to watch myself before I become bitter. There’s been more than one bottle of wine drunken after reading a book which had tons of 5 star reviews and was high up on the best seller list but was inundated with grammatical and spelling mistakes.

Have you ever donated books?

Yes. I donate some of my own works for libraries and such. Whenever I happen to see a book sale for charity, I’ll donate some old books and then buy more books than I donated. Oops!

Have you ever been on a book buying ban?

No. That’s just silly.

Do you feel that you buy too many books?

Is this a real question? Of course not!