Books: Buy or Borrow?

In a bid to try and help myself with sleeping, I make the point of spending fifteen minutes reading before bed. I’ve been careful to read physical books to stop me looking at a screen. As a result of this, I started hitting the charity shops once a month to ensure I have plenty of physical books to read.

I am fortunate I can get hold of so many free e-books for reviewing purposes and I imagine that if that were not the case, then this would be a very different post. But when I was writing the Library Lover’s Book Tag the other week, it got me thinking. What’s better: to buy or borrow books?

I love my library. Remember that above anything. I would have never been able to read half of what I have reviewed without it. Between the library and the free books I have received, I had gone a long time without buying an actual book. I had everything I required in regards to reading material; I was happy.

Lately, I have found myself re-reading books. Since my latest clear-out, I have re-read most of my bookshelf. I started to realise that waiting for the library wasn’t always an option. I can only get up there once a week, so I could go days without anything to read, longer if books were taking a while to get in. I didn’t want to read on a screen, but had gone through the books I had physical copies of.

So I started buying. I’ve limited myself, but on the first weekend of the month, I’m going to my local high street and browsing the charity shops. We have loads, so there is no shortage of books and bargains! As you can get them so cheap (a book for 25p, you can’t beat that!) it doesn’t feel like buying as such. While this hasn’t yet helped with the enjoyment of re-reading as I haven’t found the books I would like to get my hands on, it is making me more inclined to purchase physical books.

Nothing gives me more of a thrill than looking around my room and just seeing a pile of books, waiting for me. But books, naturally, take up space. Space I don’t necessarily have given the piles of them all over my floor where I can’t fit them on my bookshelves. The series I wish to re-read are also massive so again, not exactly practical to have them around.

It’s not just borrowing from libraries though. I have a system set up with a friend where we both lend each other books all the time, meaning you get the thrill of seeing a pile but then know you don’t have to find a permanent home.

So do I prefer buying or borrowing? Neither and both at the same time, it’s about reaching that compromise that works out in both a monetary and space sense as well as for reading enjoyment.

What works for you?

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