telophase | Hmmm...

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Hmmm...

The comments for the Get Rich Slowly post on the spending habits of the average American are, naturally, full of people appalled at the $118 figure for books that the stats have, plus people who explain that they're avid readers and yet spend very little on books because of libraries, ILL, used bookstores, trading books, etc.

So far, there's only one person being snarky about those who read a lot, but I've seen other blogs and other comments where other commenters get extremely snarky about people who don't use the library for most or all of their reading, and who spend large amounts of money on books.

That sparked a thought - while I'm not entirely sure where the hatred in the posts I remember comes from (surely book-buyers haven't killed their dogs?) - I do have to wonder: do they think one book is much like another? In other words: do they think that they will always be able to find what they want at the library? Do they not have particular tastes in books? How do they think publishers decide what will be published? Are they OK with best-sellers being the primary form of books available, and small-press books shouldn't be available if they can't somehow find enough market share to publish?

I'm not being especially coherent about this, because I haven't worked out the thoughts fully and I'm starving, as it's lunchtime. :D I thought I'd open it for comment, in order to work out better what I think.

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I am an avid book buyer. I always tell myself that it would be so much cheaper to use the library....

But then I love OWNING the book. I love knowing that if I want to find a particular passage all I have to do is find my copy on the shelf.

I'm guessing the idea that someone might want to, oh, read a book more than once or have their own library of references is foreign as well.

I just can't quite wrap my head around the fact that they seem to think books are produced in a vacuum and that the same sort of books will be available even if nobody buys them but libraries. I certainly have nothing against people who do all their reading from libraries - I'd do more of that if I didn't have the Bad Librarian Habit of never turning my books in* - I just don't see why the hatred spewed out against those who choose to purchase books instead of or in addition to library patronage.

* Which makes it, ironically, often cheaper for me to buy them when you consider the overdue fees. XD

You have hit on one of the primary reasons I don't take books from the library, I'm absolutely terrible about returning them. Every single time, I have exorbitant late fees and it's just not worth the hassle.

Also, I have a tendency to read a bit of a book, put it down for weeks/months/years at a time and then randomly decide I want to read the rest of it. Can't do that if you don't, you know, own the book in question.

I sheepishly admit the reason I haven't been to the public library here for some time is that I owe them money for overdue fines and haven't paid it back yet. :D Since I can easily get ILL through work, I've just been doing that - when it's someone you know phoning you and saying "This library won't lend us any more books if you don't turn it in and THAT WOULD BE VERY BAD," it's a lot more incentive to return them than mere money. :D

I don't doubt that it would be!

Considering that it wasn't all that long ago that one of the local libraries collected a fine from my friend that he incurred when he was 6 years old, I harbor no illusions about my ability to avoid the Library Mafia.

The architecture library I worked at before this one had a recently deceased patron's family return a magazine he'd checked out in the 1920s. We waived the fine. XD (We calculated it to be over a million dollars, if there weren't any caps. Had to calculate it, as it was a slow news day and after it hit the AP wires from the school newspaper, we were getting radio interviews and things, and they all asked what the fine was.)

That's awesome.

:-) I've seen a story that tops that: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/04/15/AR2009041502000.html.

I just don't see why the hatred spewed out against those who choose to purchase books instead of or in addition to library patronage.

Leaving aside the whole cultural divides between readers and non-readers, or between readers who reread and those who read only once, that sounds a lot like the sort of thing that I remember seeing in some frugal living newsgroups back in the day. There are some folks who seem to be the exact opposite of the snobbish label-whore conspicuous consumption crowd -- instead of sneering at things for being insufficiently expensive and prestigious, these guys have a sense of superiority about how *little* they spend. Some of them really seemed to take it to rather crazy extremes -- if someone else dared to mention that there were certain items where they'd pay a little more for convenience or some non-essential feature they liked, this sort never seemed to be able to resist chiming in with smugly more-frugal-than-thou UR DOIN IT RONG nastiness. These "why do you idiots buy books when you can get them for FREE?" types you're descibing sound like they've got the same lovely mindset.

Also known as "penny-wise but pound-foolish." They don't think about additional long-term costs, just the short-term savings...and usually wind up costing themselves more time/money than they saved in the first place.

Oh, the folks I'm thinking of were a step or two beyond that. Lots of the newsgroups regulars fell into what I'd consider penny-wise-and-pound-foolish behavior with their thriftiness, but managed to do so without the smugness and sneering at the folks who took a more moderate approach. The folks I'm thinking of here weren't just extremely frugal, they were loudly elitist and judgemental about it, too.

badnoodles' comment about the folks who like to crow about their superiority in never watching television was right on the money -- some folks don't watch TV because they're just too busy to find the time, or they don't enjoy it as much as other forms of entertainment, but don't think any less about folks who do watch TV; but there's a subgroup of non-TV-watchers who seem to delight in grabbing any oppportunity to boast about how special and superior they are for never ever doing anything so time-wasting and brain-rotting and stupid as watching television, and sneering at the folks who watch it. The elitist-frugal sort I'm thinking of here showed the same sort of attitude and boastful behavior over finding ways to avoid spending money.

That reminds me of the people who, upon perusing my pictures of Bleach characters, announce that they don't read/watch Bleach because it's too popular.

I have so far refrained from saying "Huh. Interesting. I don't let other people dictate my reading like that."

I got that way with Harry Potter. Don't like it because you don't like the story, characters, writing? More power to you! Go read whatever you like, and I will not push you to like something you don't. Don't like it becasue it's too popular? You're still letting The (implied Ignorant) Masses determine your choices.

Oh, this! My mother used to be quite sharp about it -- we were a family of readers, she started reading to my brother and I as infants (and continued for quite some time, until we were -- eight, nine, ten, something like that -- and my brother's and my tastes had diverged enough that it didn't make sense to read to both of us, although we still swapped books and discussed them at the dinner table) and in the 'reading competition' we had in sixth grade I had the best results (both in hours-read and books-completed) in the entire school. So it's not at all that my family doesn't value reading. We are stuffed with books, literally and metaphorically.

And yet she never understood why 'anti-TV' types counted reading popcorn fiction as inherently better than watching a well-researched and bibliographied history program on the television. (She and I both enjoy popcorn fiction as entertainment, but why is mindless-entertainment reading better than mindful-educational television?) Or why my elementary school, stuipdly, had their 'no TV-watching month, with prizes!' during the Winter Olympics, whereas we prized the Olympics as a fascinating cultural experience.

And yes, it's the same thing: a combination of strutting one-upmanship with oversimplified and distressingly binary ideas of good and bad. Books good, TV bad! No-spending good, spending bad! When this, like all life, is much, much, much more nuanced than that.

"Which makes it, ironically, often cheaper for me to buy them when you consider the overdue fees. XD"

Preach it, sister.

I don't use libraries to check out fiction any more...or any text I'll need for long term research that's under $30 or so. I'd rather just spend a few extra bucks and have my own copy rather than have to deal with renewal/late fees, etc...

If I want to preview fiction, I'll sit in a Barnes and Noble.

This is an excellent point. My father is like that. He only reads a book once. Never rereads anything. This blows my mind. I've reread all my favorite titles literally over a dozen time. How can anyone only read a book once?!

Of course, my father still buys books, since he likes to read things by his favorite authors as soon as they come out. Then, after he's finished them, he donates them to the library. So everyone wins. :)

I don't reread, either. I don't really get the point. There are so many books I want to read, if I spent time rereading, I'd never have time to read new stuff.

I used to get most of my books from libraries, but last year I fell in love with bookmooch. I like that it gives me a good way to get rid of my books (I otherwise donate them to the library, but by doing BM I get something in return) and I can get books for cheap (price of postage for one book is cheaper than anywhere else, since even if I found the book for a penny on Amazon, shipping is still $3.50; we don't have any used bookstores nearby) but don't have a timeframe for reading them like I do with the library.

I'm both a hoarder/re-reader and a read-once-only person -- there are favorites, much-used references, etc. that I simply have to keep on hand at all times, but there's also a second tier of books that I find interesting or diverting enough to read through once, but don't feel the need to keep around on my overstuffed shelves. Unless something is at ultra-cheap remaindered/used prices, I try to mostly concentrate my new-book spending on the stuff that I know will be long-term rereadable -- I'll cheerfully buy brand-new hardcovers from favorite authors, but when trying out something new I generally want a freebie or low-cost copy to test-drive.

Libraries, supplemented by purchasing, used to be my primary means of discovering/trying out new authors and picking up the various one-time reads. BookMooch has pretty much replaced the library for me now, though -- there isn't a library within a convenient walking distance of where I live right now, so I'd be spending money on transit to get there and back, spending even more time, and racking up occasional overdue fees because the whole time-and-inconvenience factor means it's more likely that I might not always get the books back when they're due. Being able to hunt for and request books online 24/7, having the books come right to my door, being able to take my time reading them and not worry about a bit of damage if I want to read them in the tub, while travelling, etc., and knowing I can turn around and easily rehome them if they're not keepers -- those are all more than enough benefits to outweigh the negligible postage costs for me. I still shop for used books online and offline regularly, and would happily add libraries back to my routine if any future life changes bring me to a place where one is sufficiently convenient in location and hours of operation -- but Bookmooch has really been a really wonderful thing for me, and I'd still be using it even if I moved right next door to a library.

What I suspect it is, is that when most people see a graph like this, they want to say "I spend less, so I'm a better person!" And the category it's easiest to say that about, for many people, is books.

I'm curious why books aren't part of entertainment, though.

Agreed on both counts. I wonder if there's some overlap with education, though-- textbooks are the biggest seller in the States by a significant margin.

I suspect so. Which makes it particularly odd that several of the commenters are going, "Well, if you don't count textbooks, I only spend x amount!" Why would you not count textbooks?! That's like saying, "Sure, I bought a car yesterday, but on the weekends I walk, so my transportation expenses are really pretty low!"

That was a little crazy, yes. Though "Education" is a separate category so I can see being confused as to which category it should be in.

That's probably a lot of it. It's the "I'm well read, but unlike you rubes I do it for FREEEEEEEE!" mentality, which give double bonus of +Culture and -Spending. It's kind of similar to the people who brag in comment threads about not owning or watching television.

Well, the graph does separate /reading/ (of all types, not just books), which is a vital skill from an educational and performance standpoint. I would wager that with few exceptions, "entertainment" (movies, music, theater, sports events, I presume) is passively and visually absorbed.

The books I want aren't typically in the library. I buy a lot of recent cultural studies and media studies books. I can get them on my shelf a lot faster than the university library can order and process them.

The people I've seen get nasty about book-buying generally fall into two camps: those who only read the (dead white guy) "classics," with which libraries tend to be amply stocked, and non-readers. Among the second group, one book really is very much like another. Among the first, any book that is not a "classic" is "trash," hence the horror and contempt about spending money on them. Particularly small-press titles, since small-press is considered synonymous with vanity press.

I've noticed I've read more 'classic' titles for

50books_poc than some because I've been targeting my (very small) local library and used bookstores.

It's not been uncommon in my life for my local library to have any books in the genres I read because I gave those books to the library during my last shelf purge. And if I wanted to read those books again, I'd have kept them.

Also, here in San Diego, if you want a book that belongs to another branch of the city library, you have to go get it yourself as of a few years ago. Between that and the lack of good general used bookstores (most of them specialize in pricy maritime-themed antique coffee table books to coordinate with your decor), your choices in San Diego are to spend the money on gas or bus fare getting to a distant branch of the library or Book Off, or to spend the money at the B&N/Borders down the road, if your local branch of the library isn't fulfilling your reading needs. We do have a lot of universities with their own libraries, but I haven't yet attempted getting a card at any of them, so I don't know how tricky that is for non-students and non-faculty. I also can't vouch for how well and diversely-stocked they are.

I especially like the people who brag in comments about how they go into B&N, sit in the cafe reading the magazines, and then don't buy anything. "It's free!" they say, as if B&N is just another lending library ...

At least they're doing it in a chain, I guess.

Eh, it's alright to do that if you also make a point of buying from there regularly. Dunno 'bout you, but I can't afford to cough up cash every time I see an interesting cover/synopsis on a book (especially a hardcover) or magazine.

I buy enough of my favorite authors' works (or Loeb Classical Library texts, which are almost impossible to find used at any discount that shipping won't eat up...) from chain stores that it makes up for me reading a whole book there occasionally.

I'd never do that in a indie/used bookstore, though. That's not cool.

Yes.

I do use the library/borrow books/etc. But I buy books because I want to make sure that I will always have a copy, even if I move, even if my library triages the book (or someone checks it out and loses it, or it wears out). I buy books because I want to be able to go, "Hm, having a bad day, what's a good comfort read?" at two in the morning when I can't sleep and know I have something right there that I love, that will make me feel better. I buy books because I want to read them in the bath, and I won't read borrowed books in the bath lest I drop them. I buy books because I have loved everything the author ever wrote and I don't want to wait, and also I want to repay the author. I buy books because I want to reference them later and fill them with bookmarks until they look like spiky multicolored hedgehogs, and then be able six months later to go poke the bookmarks and find that really cool bit of info. I buy books because I like to spend a bored afternoon riffling through them and picking out something to read on the spur of the moment, and it feels good to have two hundred books to pick from instead of just the twenty that looked interesting at the library. I buy books because sometimes my tastes are esoteric and even our huge urban library doesn't have what I want.

In essence, I buy books because they are not transitory posessions to me, but enduring ones, and ones I want to reuse. For the same reason, in effect, that I'm not going to borrow a chair from someone for two weeks: I am going to want to sit in it again after the end of the two weeks, probably.

(I think it's one of the common things that happens in personal finance blogs: people demonize the luxuries that they don't personally enjoy as wasteful, and defend the luxuries that they do enjoy as important. I don't see movies in the theater because I don't like the theater -- but I don't think it's wasteful for someone who loves movies to go. And I would hope that they extend me the same understanding.)

Yes, this exactly!!

Exactly!

I buy books, I borrow books, I keep books, I trade books, I lend books, I buy KindleBooks, I listen to audiobooks...

[long ranty reply redacted for] BOOKSELLER HATE HATE HATE [/ranty]

I cannot grasp this mentality at all. I buy books because I want to be able to reread them a billion times. At two in the morning. When the library is closed. And I want the newest books by my favorite authors immediately. And I want to support them, because I love their books. Arg.

I think people who think this way have several things going on. They think the whole spending-less thing makes them morally superior; they probably aren't very big readers in the first place; and as you said, they have no concept of the publishing world and think the books they like just appear by magic. Ugh.

ETA: Oh, and the $118 figure blows my mind. I know it's just the average, but man, I sure spend a LOT more than that on books every year.

Edited 2009-07-14 21:40 (UTC)

When my friend

lindentreeisle came up, I spent over $100 on used books. That weekend.

We should start a club. I KNOW I've performed that feat at some point.

But I would have paid so much more for them new!

I think there's a bit of anti-intellectualism in there.

But this may just be me. If you took all the non-fiction books I've bought (because the library just doesn't stock what I'm looking for) off my shelf (desk, table, other desk, floor, kitchen counter...), I'd not need to buy more bookshelves.

When I just want a quickie read, I'm happy with library books. But most of what I want I want to *argue* with. I want to write in. I want to horrify booklovers by how much I engage with my books.

Oh, also, I buy books to support my local indy bookstores. It's why I pay more for my books, and I *know* I pay more for my books than I would if I got them at Amazon or Chapters. But I'm supporting a bookstore where they order books in they think I might like, and set them aside for me for whenever I come in. Where I can go in and say "Hey, I want to do 50Books_POC but focusing on Canadian history, Halp!" and the next day there's a list of books everyone brainstormed that would be appropriate for my needs.

I mean, yeah, I could have as many books as I do *cheaper* from Amazon. But financially, I'm in a good place right now. Why not spend my money in a way that supports my local (fully accessible, carries large print and braille, the staff doesn't treat PWD like they're all infants, and wheelchairs can get through the aisles) book store?

Libraries would *hate* me.

Edited 2009-07-14 21:55 (UTC)

I don't understand people who don't understand book-buying. I don't buy as many books as I'd like to (er, not counting manga, of which I buy far, far too much for my income >.<), but there are so many reasons to! I also believe in heavy library use, but reference and rereading and supporting authors/stores and just being able to have a House Full of Books are all compelling arguments.

I wasn't that surprised when I read the comments about books. I noticed a while back that my circle of friends, both online and off, are more well-read and intellectual/creative than the average person.

I give myself $50/month for books (and it usually is more when you include graphic novels/comics) and a lot of those books fall into the 'read once then donate' or 'reference' categories.

I finally have a library card but I don't use it often; the library and I have this... relationship... where I take their books then they demand money from me when I forget to return them. I DO like using the library for research and crafting books.

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