Dear reader, I hope you know about Bookfest. It is run by Lifeline and for many years has brought Queenslanders much joy. I don't know if they do it in other states, but if they don't, they should!
Yesterday I convinced my darling hubby to take me along to the latest one at the Brisbane Convention Centre. It runs for 10 whole days! Imagine how many books they sell. They put new ones out each night, so that treasure-seekers have a fresh batch to trawl through every day.
I picked up six novels, all from the "quality" section. That means that they are near-new, still in pretty good nick and you pay a bit more. There's also the "unpriced" section (where the biggest bargains are to be found!) and the "priced" section (where you can get good quality books for a few bucks).
The best part is it's not just fiction books - there's everything from textbooks to travel, cookbooks to gardening and everything in between. My favourite is the Sci-Fi/Fantasy category because I'm always on the lookout for second-hand Terry Pratchetts. You never see them, of course, because people who buy Pratchett books never give them away! But yesterday I was in awe of the variety and quality of books I saw there. Any serious fantasy book lover knows the real pain of trying to find every book in a series. Here, you could quite easily complete Eddings' Belgariad without breaking a sweat (as indeed I did last year).
And the best part was the savings. I bought six books for $5 each. That's $30. To buy them retail, it would have cost me $107.50! (calculated using Booktopia).
The only thing that I do not like about buying books second-hand is that the author gets nothing. This is why when I do have they budget, I do try to buy books new, so at least they get to see some of the profit.
Do you buy secondhand books? What has been your best bargain?
Hi, I'm Sarah! I'm 33 and searching for my passion.
Until then, I slog away in a cubicle working full-time and focus on enjoying my downtime with things like TV (my old friend), movies, twitter, (trying to) cook, reading and hanging out with my hubby. My head is turned by things like vintage homewares, stationery, chocolate and scrapbooking. I blog about whatever takes my fancy.
I love the Lifeline Bookfest! I always go every time it's on and spend thirty or forty dollars in the unpriced section. I blame the Bookfest for the reason I have three overflowing book shelves in my bedroom!
ReplyDeleteOh yes it is so easy to get overflowing bookcases! I have had to introduce a new rule: for each book I bring in, I have to donate one. It's the only way I will have enough space for them all!
DeleteOh god, I LOVE book sales! The local salvos have a book section and they charge $2 for as many books you can fit into a plastic shopping bag. Which is actually a LOT of books, especially kids books.
ReplyDeleteSo I always feel like a criminal because $2 is basically nothing. Sometimes I split a bag over 2 bags instead.
ps: i notice your comment "reply" function isnt working. It's an easy fix - just go to the template section of blogger, click edit HTML and under the big box of code there's a link that says "edit widget template to default" or something. If you click that, it will kind of force refresh the template and it should work. No widgets will be removed.
If you do that you should make a backup of your template first (Template > Backup/Restore). Or if things go completely crazy (doubtful) I can always help you. Sorry that is quite long winded!
xx