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Post by rondette on Jun 24, 2004 1:03:27 GMT
Now, I get through books quickly. I mean 1 to 2 days.
I am a reading junkie, and I've found the best way of getting books is through the many Charity shops that exist in our town. They cost at most about £2. I find this immensely preferable to forking out £6 or £7 when I'll only finish it in 2 days. Sure you don't get the immediate choice of best sellers, but I have discovered a lot of authors I'd never have read previously. I don't know why so many people pay full whack for a book when they can pick it up a couple of months later for a fraction of the price.
Funny thing is, through my extensive research, every single charity shop has at least 2 Kathy Lette books. Are they put there on purpose?
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Post by Deleted on Jun 24, 2004 1:53:04 GMT
Charity shop books are ace. The British Heart Foundation recently yielded the excellent-looking MODELS: Screen Kiss, which is about a girl who becomes a model and has to do a screen kiss!
I don't know about the Kathy Lette books. Clearly they are expendable (and shit) and nobody minds getting rid of them. I always note that charity shop books are full of novels by Booker Prize-winning authors, but never the novel that won.
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Post by rondette on Jun 24, 2004 2:02:36 GMT
! I don't know about the Kathy Lette books. Clearly they are expendable (and shit) and nobody minds getting rid of them. From having read the several (charity shop) books of hers that I've looked at, they all seem to be bad puns of every male that ever existed, and faintly embarrasing puns of the female race. I long for the day of an excellently written 'RomCom' that makes you agree with the protaganist.
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Post by klee on Jun 24, 2004 14:59:34 GMT
Love love love charity shop books. I've picked up so much unusual stuff from the four paperbacks for £1 section of moudly old Cat Shelter shops. And as it's so cheap, you can take risks and not feel guilty about leaving the crap books half-finished. Guilt-free culture.
I think Kathy Lette's shit in paper form novels have been given away on the front of magazines before, which explains why so many of them find their way into charity shops. Practically every one I've ever been into has a copy of Dazzle by Judith Krantz on the shelves somewhere. Ten years ago, however, the main offender for charity shop ubiquity was Jaws.
The best ever charity find was a home-bound collection of anecdotes and vaguely racist / sexist jokes I found in a Cancer relief shop which had been put together by some local 'wit' on the Rotary Club circuit. It was called 'It's the Way I Tell'em'. Humourless prick.
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Post by elmsyrup on Jun 24, 2004 19:47:36 GMT
But what about libraries? Cheaper still in the sense of free, you can request specific books, and they're really really important to society yes they are.
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Post by littlemissperfect on Jun 24, 2004 19:51:33 GMT
But if you buy books in a charity shop you get to keep them! Recently I've got The Snow Geese by William Fiennes for 50p, which I've been meaning to read for ages. It really makes me cranky when I see loads of books I paid full price for, or bought in 3 for 2s, on sale for 50p in my Oxfam Supersavers! Charity shopping also means you can buy rubbishy chick-lit and not feel like you've completely wasted money. I got the entire works of Lisa Jewell and Freya North from Sally Ann's in Cambridge. I do read real things as well though, honest.....
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Post by joined up talking on Jun 24, 2004 19:52:18 GMT
When I was little I always went into charity shops with my mum for books and we bought one in there that I never read because I always thought it was too old for me at the time. Now I really want to read it, but I have no idea where it is, or even what it was called. All I know is that it was about two twin boys who turned out to both be pirates although they didn't know that until they reached a certain age. Most of the book was about them being trained or whatever to be pirates. Hmm, it doesn't sound very good when I describe it.
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Post by rondette on Jun 24, 2004 19:52:19 GMT
Elmsyrup, I agree, but I work in a kitchen and often read whilst cooking (I can multi task like that) and most of the books end up looking a little.....dog-eared. Most of the books I buy cost very little, I don't mind them getting grubby, but somehow I think the library might!
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Post by rondette on Jun 24, 2004 19:56:26 GMT
But if you buy books in a charity shop you get to keep them! Recently I've got The Snow Geese by William Fiennes for 50p, which I've been meaning to read for ages. It really makes me cranky when I see loads of books I paid full price for, or bought in 3 for 2s, on sale for 50p in my Oxfam Supersavers! Charity shopping also means you can buy rubbishy chick-lit and not feel like you've completely wasted money. I got the entire works of Lisa Jewell and Freya North from Sally Ann's in Cambridge. I do read real things as well though, honest..... HAHAHA you're the same as me, I buy trashy chick lit books that I know I'll never read again. In fact, several times I have picked up a book, read the back, and only til I got to the bottom of the synopsis realised that I've already read it. I read lightweight stuff at work, but save the denser stuff for home, or bedtime reading.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 25, 2004 16:25:44 GMT
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Post by klee on Jun 25, 2004 16:36:47 GMT
Is Sophie Hannah the poet with the big glasses and the Saffy from Ab Fab hair? Or am I barking completely up the wrong'un?
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Post by Deleted on Jun 25, 2004 16:53:15 GMT
Is Sophie Hannah the poet with the big glasses and the Saffy from Ab Fab hair? Or am I barking completely up the wrong'un? That is she. After I read this book, I met her at a reading she did - the hair was piled on top of her head like a great big pineapple. She is one of my favouritest people ever.
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Post by rondette on Jun 25, 2004 18:03:33 GMT
I will keep an eye out for that. it sounds rather good!
I am currently reading 'Party Season' by Sarah Mason.
It's ok, the lead female character is just loserish enough to be vaguely likeable, although there is the stereotypical Gay friend, Strong and silent romantic potential, and the 'kooky' flat-mate, all of which appear in almost every book of the genre I've ever read. And I've read a lot, believe me!
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Post by SweatShop on Jun 29, 2004 22:45:14 GMT
I can almost guarentee that you will find at least one Jeffrey Archer book in any charity shop in the uk!
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Smudge
Su Pollard
We should be doing the Hokey Cokey
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Post by Smudge on Aug 3, 2004 0:03:52 GMT
I hate books from charity shops. And from the library for that matter. I don't know why, but OI have major issues with reading something which came from God knows where. I can't read a book if it smells funny either.
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Post by Cherubic on Aug 15, 2004 11:58:45 GMT
For anyone in the London area I'd recoment the Amnesty bookshop on Eversholt Street (between Euston andMornington Cresent tubes). It's two stories of cheap and decent books that help prisoners of conscience in far off lands. Although some of the stuff is quite expensive,most is cheap as.
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Post by toby3000 on May 11, 2005 16:58:26 GMT
Lots of charity shops are dead expensivem I think, especially for books.
Libraries these days ahrdly have any books. the none in durham is piss-poor.
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Post by SweatShop on May 16, 2005 23:06:45 GMT
Funny thing is, through my extensive research, every single charity shop has at least 2 Kathy Lette books. Are they put there on purpose? There are also always the token four Jeffrey Archer books, just so the shelf never goes completely bare.
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Post by Deleted on May 17, 2005 7:58:39 GMT
The other day I managed to get Puddle Lane: Toby Spelldragon and the Magician for 99p in a charity shop. This is a mark-up from 75p, which it originally cost in 1986.
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Post by bittersweet on Feb 19, 2007 19:43:32 GMT
Funny thing is, through my extensive research, every single charity shop has at least 2 Kathy Lette books. Are they put there on purpose? I was going to start a thread about Kathy Lette books, then noticed this 'charity shop books' one. And lo and behold, she's mentioned. And rightly too. Every single charity shop book shelf I've ever perused is full of her wretched ramblings. I saw a poster on the tube today advertising her latest offering, evidently its a "top 10 best seller" no less. But, go into any charity shop in Wimbledon, South London and I'm sure you'll find a copy for a quid. Anyway, I made a nice looking purchase today. 'Charles Hawtrey 1914-1988' by Roger Lewis. Its a biography but only 98 pages long (!) which is a bit disappointing, hopefully will prove to be an interesting read though and it was only 99p.
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Post by jode* on Feb 20, 2007 9:34:22 GMT
I always wrongly assume that charity shops are like jumble sales and that all books are 10p or 20p. I just can't warrant paying £2 for a battered hardback, however much of a good cause it is.
The charity shops in my town are so overpriced. All of the Atmosphere (Primark) clothing is being touted at a higher price than when it was bought new.
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Post by SweatShop on Feb 20, 2007 12:23:16 GMT
I just realised I made the same joke twice on this thread.
Gosh, I am lazy.
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Post by thelovelykate on Feb 20, 2007 17:15:42 GMT
For anyone in the London area I'd recoment the Amnesty bookshop on Eversholt Street (between Euston andMornington Cresent tubes). It's two stories of cheap and decent books that help prisoners of conscience in far off lands. Although some of the stuff is quite expensive,most is cheap as. I LOVE Amnesty bookshops. They are consistently excellent. My local one in Bristol is generally very cheap although much to my horror I paid a whole 2 POUNDS for a book there on Saturday. I do appreciate that this actually very cheap but I am used to paying about 40p!
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Post by [james] on Feb 22, 2007 10:09:24 GMT
Me and my galpal Samantha always buy the 99p Mills and Boons books from the Leicester YMCA shop (which, oddly, is the least gay place I've ever been). We pick them based on the title and see who gets the filthier one. I almost always win (and yet am I still a loser...)
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Post by Deleted on Feb 22, 2007 13:22:39 GMT
For anyone in the Leeds area, the Oxfam bookshop in Headingley is amazing but slightly overpriced, books are of the Kafka/Carter/Nabokov/pretentious variety (cos the students dump them there) and around £2.
Scope on the Headrow has each book at 50p, which is much better, but the quality just ain't there - it's all Kathy Lette/Jeffrey Archer/Ken Follet bollocks. The RSPCA shop will usually yield a Point Horror or two...
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