Reading as a cheap hobby

MrsStepford

Reading needn't cost anything if you live within walking distance of a library or get a free bus pass. Libraries often put on free activities for children, too. If you're lucky, your local library will be warm and have some cosy armchairs. Some libraries will allow laptops so that students can work on projects and homework. Those who work from home can have a change of 'scenery' at a library and some libraries have cafés. If you take a notebook or a Kindle or phone with a good camera, keen cooks can copy down recipes or take photos. If you have arthritic fingers or don't possess a phone or tablet, most libraries will do cheap photocopies for you.

If you prefer to own books rather than borrow them from a library, there are several options:

* Charity shops
* Boot fairs
* eBay
* Book fairs
*Amazon and Amazon Marketplace
* Project Gutenberg www.gutenberg.org

These cover a variety of price points, from free (Project Gutenberg) to potentially expensive (book fairs).

A 2009 study from the University of Sussex showed that reading for as little as six minutes reduced stress by up to 68% and a study from the University of Liverpool found that reading for 30 minutes per week reduced depression by 21%.

Reading can be free or cheap, it can raise money for charities, it slows the heart rate, reduces stress and depression and buying secondhand books is a great form of recycling. 

As I couldn't find a thread exclusively about reading, I thought that I would start one so that we bookworms could discuss why we read, our favourite genres and books and our latest finds.

For example, when I was a child I didn't go anywhere without a book. On car journeys, I would read rather than look at the scenery, if there was any. I would take one holdall or suitcase on holiday and another holdall for books. Whenever I went to stay with my grandmother, she would hand over a carrier bag filled with secondhand books.

My grandmother bought me a copy of the Kama Sutra from a jumble sale when I was about ten, because she thought it was a book about yoga 😂 I was almost halfway through it before my mother found out and confiscated it.

I have Kindle Unlimited and read every day, mostly police procedural and magazines. 


Black Beauty by Anna Sewell, had me in tears aged nine and I loved the pony books by the Pullein-Thompson sisters. I collect 1970s Fontana paperback books by Agatha Christie as they have beautiful front cover illustrations. My favourite book is Interview with a Vampire by Anne Rice. Another book which made me cry, was Borrowed Time by Paul Monette. Creepiest book that I have read is Christine by Stephen King. I haven't read any of the Harry Potter books ! The Sheik by E M Hull (1919) a pig farmer's wife, is quite violent and disturbing in places IMO. Georgette Heyer Recency romances are pure mush but just the thing for a winter afternoon in front of a log fire 🔥 I own hundreds of cook books. I worked in two famous London bookshops, Foyles and Hatchards for a total of six years.

Latest books bought: The Hairy Bikers Mediterranean Adventure for my husband, Mary Berry Makes It Easy for my cousin in Vancouver and several cookbooks for ne from eBay all under £3 with free postage.

Eagerly awaiting all your book related posts ! 😁

Mnoee

Libraries have free ebooks, emagazines and audio books too - I think it varies by area, but with mine you can sign up totally online and get reading for free right away.

The last book I read was a one man play - Lorenzo by Ben Target. I often find it difficult to read for long periods and struggle to keep a story in my head, so I tend to prefer short stories or books I can consume in a single hour-ish session. 

Brie

I was lucky in that from the age of 10 - 16 I lived a couple of blocks from a large library that had so many books. I can't remember even a fraction of the titles but I remember going through a phase of reading social history fiction type books that weren't really stories but outlined what it was like to be the son of a baker in the 12th century or a maid in big house in the 15th century.  I grew to love looking through both fiction and non fiction and choosing things that must have seemed completely random to others.  I didn't get on with Georgette Heyer type romance but was fascinated by ghost stories or engineering books that showed how things like pumps for farm wells worked.  Managed to get on well enough with the librarians that they would allow me books from the adult section (which was most of non fiction) well before when I was entitled to an adult "ticket".  

When I started to have a bit of money available I'd go a few blocks in the other direction and spend hours looking through what was available at Hannelore Headley's second hand book shop.  And bought a lot of old classic, Brontes, Dickens etc.  Hated some, loved others and 50 years on still have a lot of them.  I was surprised a few years back when my mom (knowing where I had spent my time) sent me a signed copy of her autobiography, Blond China Doll, describing her family's journey from Germany to avoid the holocaust to Canada via Shanghai.  It amazed me to have spent so much time in her store and to never think how she, complete with German accent, had come to a relatively small city.  Then again - so many people in my home town were from Europe somewhere and most were there having escaped persecution and upheaval.

Speaking of reading for free....a classic case for me was when I went to uni and had to look for books on my reading list for my classes (no kindles then!).  Being in sciences a lot of books had to be bought new as second hand ones were out of date and so all very expensive so buying fiction wasn't an option as I didn't have the money.  Which didn't stop me browsing the paperback novels.   Came across this one with a scary cover and started to read the first couple of pages and realised 90 minutes later that I had missed a lecture.  Put the book back but the next day I started it where I left off and did so again the next couple of days.  And that's how I read Stephen King's Carrie for free.  

And nearly got done for stealing from Foyles in London.  By then I was at uni in the UK studying English Literature (specifically English Lit around the turn of the Century - so 1890 to 1910+).  And picked up a book I wanted in Foyles and wandered around to see if there was anything else I wanted.  Noticed a door and more books across the lane and went out and in to what turned out to be another shop (Blackwell's?).  So there I was with a book in my hand belonging to a different shop but also likely sold in the shop I was in.  So quickly scarpered back across the land and went directly to pay.  In all likelihood I could have just walked off into the sunset but one doesn't do that!!

All my recent purchases have been art books, specifically watercolour which is what I'm supposed to spend my time doing when I'm not working.  Got Jim Moir's bird book for Christmas which is delightful.  Have read all the Harry Potters at least once, all the Pullman Golden Compass books, all the Rivers of London (had to stop reading the last one when I was alone at the family farm in Canada last year as it was a bit too spooky and to much like where I was staying).  Need to keep reading the Osman Detective Club books and may take one of those on holiday next week. 

Wow - what a trip down memory lane!!! 

Brie

Oh - if you want a book to make you cry and cheer.  Vita Sackville West's All Passion Spent.  
Best kids book - The Incredible Journey.

I've bought both of those so many times and given them away to friends hoping to get them back but not complaining when I don't.  Don't mind if they've read them and kept them or read them and passed them on.  

Cookbook I need to buy at some point...Food that really Schmecks.  But it would probably not be good for my cholesterol.

Brambling

I loved the Incredible Journey and now you have made me want to go find a copy to reread.  We grew up with books from my older siblings I remember rereading What Katy Did books, Ann of Green Gables, Black Beauty and other similar books.  We had no library in the village but we had a mobile one which came every fortnight

I'm a love a good detective book and was sad at the last of the Ellie Griffiths Ruth Galloway books and a good dark Scandi murder   I prefer a series of books as i like to invest in the characters

I've just finished a charity shop find 'Finding George Orwell in a Burmese Teashop' by Emma Larkin a very interesting read, it talks of George Orwell books being banned in Burma and sold on the black market.

Brie

Strangely I never read a lot of standard kids books until I was at uni doing Eng Lit.  Even stranger Anne of Green Gables was one of those.  Strange because I am Canadian so one would have thought it would have been pushed more (if only due to Canadian content rules which affected a lot of the arts) but also because LMMontgomery lived not far from where my mom was raised.  

I did read a lot of Farley Mowat (boys adventure) & Stephen Leacock (humour) as they did get pushed in CanCon rules. 

Wonder why they did that with men but not a woman who is revered around the world.....  (happy Women's Day btw...)

Brambling

I don't think I've read any Farley Mowat, boys adventure books were the Hardy Boys.  Money wasn't plentyful growing up so any books we owned were treasured and reread 

bouicca21

@MrsStepford wash your mouth out with soap! Georgette Heyer romances are not mush.  And unlike most romantic novelists she didn’t simply rework the same plot over and over again. Also she gets the historical background pretty well right most of the time.

The rant over, I go nowhere without a book or my kindle, though sadly the battery on my kindle is starting to show its age and I’m not sure it is possible to replace it.

Floss

I'm a child of 2 public librarians, brought up with books & given books every Christmas & birthday. Two of my most treasured books are boxed editions of The Hobbit & LOTR (printed on bible paper) given to me by my dad when I was 18.

I read cookbooks (Nigel Slater, Nigella, Rick Stein) for their prose as much as the recipes within.

Favourite/ most read book LOTR (I have my boxed edition and a paperback for reading, the second copy as the first disintegrated through use over a 25 year period)
Most bizarre memory of a book Ivanhoe (my brother's copy, I was aged 8ish)

ETA most recent purchase The Last Devil To Die by Richard Osman, £2.25 at a charity shop.

dp1

I've always been an avid reader since I was a little girl, I can remember walking to the library by myself from about age 7. I read all my mam's books she'd had as a girl - the Katy books, Little Women series, Black Beauty, Heidi. I also loved school stories - Mallory Towers, St Clares and especially the Chalet School books - I can't tell you all how much I wanted to be sent to the Chalet School! It couldn't have been more different to my north-east town. I don't know what age you were supposed to be to join the adult library, but I can remember my mam asking for me to be allowed to join early - which I did. No-one must have ever checked what I was reading as I can remember some quite unsuitable books - Jackie Collins etc. I also loved reading my mams Catherine Cooksons.
Now I'll still read absolutely anything but, since I have had Long Covid, reading is hard work for me, though I keep trying. I find it very difficult to remember characters names and what is happening and have to constantly look back, which takes away some of the pleasure. It also makes it take a lot longer to get through a book.
My granddaughter, age 5, loves books and I have lots at my house for her - she always has at least 3 at bedtime and she loves it when I take her to the library. She is also a good reader and can pick up a book and sound out the words she doesn't know.
I have a kindle but only really use it on holiday as I much prefer to read a 'real' book and like to see them on my bookshelves.

PipneyJane

What a lovely idea @MrsStepford.  

I was a voracious reader until 1999, when I stopped commuting by train to work and lost 3+ hours a day of reading time.  (I could get to the office in less than an hour and a half.  It was the 2+ hours to get home, on unreliable trains, that converted me to driving the 1.5 hours each way in rush hour.).

One habit I learned during my years of commuting: whenever a new book in a series was published, I’d read the latest book, then go back and re-read the entire series in order, including the new book.  I had to, or I’d have given my entire salary to Waterstones or W H Smith each month. I could easily have bought 6-10 new novels in a month, since I always had at least an hour’s commute each-way to work.  Almost all purchases were mystery novels.

Growing up

I read my way through the fiction sections of all 3 schools I attended.  My favourites were Elyne Mitchell’s Silver Brumby books and any of the books by the Pullein-Thompson sisters - I was horse mad - and mystery novels galore.  Does anyone else remember Trixie Belden?  I owned the first 16 books in the series.  Took me years to collect them.  I think I donated them to charity when I left Oz.

Another series I collected as a child/teenager were Helen Dore Boylston’s Sue Barton nursing novels. Unlike the Belden’s, which I outgrew, I still have the whole series.  Sue Barton Student Nurse is the reason I became a nurse.   They even accompanied me to the nurses’ home at the hospital where I trained.

Most of my personal library began when I discovered the secondhand bookshop near Melbourne University.  That’s where I bought my Georgette Heyer’s, several of my Dorothy L Sayer’s, Anne McCaffrey’s etc.   If I wasn’t buying second hand books there, I was paying full price in the book department at Myer’s.  Myer’s is where I discovered Terry Pratchett’s Discworld.  I bought a copy of Weird Sisters and was hooked.

Currently reading:

At the moment, I’m re-reading all Dorothy L Sayers’ Lord Peter Wimsey novels, in order of publication.  I’m in the middle of the 5th, Strong Poison, although I started by re-reading Gaudy Night when I was in hospital earlier this year,  having been severely ill with lymphoma.  It was the one that DH could easily find on the bookshelf.  It took me a while to get back my reading stamina.  It took even longer to unearth all my Sayer’s books, since my library is triple packed on the bookshelves and not in any real order.

The irony is that the only Sayer’s book I haven’t been able to find IS Strong Poison, so I have to read via the Kindle app on my iPad.  I’d rather read dead-tree books, even though I have hundreds of Kindle editions, all bought cheaply via BookBub.

I had my third round of 6 of chemotherapy this week, and have to time my reading so that I’m on a fresh book for each chemo session, which lasts 5-6 hours.

- Pip