Do you read all the books you buy?

Discussion in Books, eBooks & Audio Books started by Denis Hard • May 12, 2014.

  1. Denis Hard

    Denis HardWell-Known Member

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    It may seem obvious but sometimes people buy books which they think might interest [or books which they actually intend to read] but get never manage to read those books because they are busy, find other better books etc.

    Buying a book and never reading that book can be a waste of money because even if you intend to resell it, you can only get back a fraction of what you paid for it?

    Do you guys buy only the books you'll read or does it happen at times that you buy a book that you end up not reading for one reason or another?
     
  2. jneanz

    jneanzActive Member

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    Honestly, I read about 98% of the books I buy. I once belonged to a book club and it became difficult to keep up with reading. One thing I will not do is trash them, even if they sit in storage for a while.
     
  3. Fauxpat

    FauxpatMember

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    I'm really bad about accumulating books and not reading them. In fact, every couple of years I have to purge my collection of books taking up space that I know I'll never get around to, or ones that don't necessarily reflect my current tastes. I'm in the process of moving, so the next great purge is happening. This time I'm getting rid of much more than those particular books, though. The house we made our last move into had fleas, which only got worse because of our cat. A few months go by and I went for a book on our bottom shelf, and... yeah, those books are getting tossed, too.
     
  4. isabbbela

    isabbbelaWell-Known Member

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    Sadly no.... I used to buy a bunch of paper books every month and there are several on my bookshelf I still didn't read and to be honest don't know if I'll ever get to reading them. Now that I mainly read ebooks I find it even harder to read every book I get, just because if I get bored I'll just toss it and go to the next one!
     
  5. Jessi

    Jessi<a href="http://www.quirkycookery.com">QuirkyCooke

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    I definitely don't. I have a bunch of books from my past that I still haven't made it around to reading yet.

    That being said, I pretty much never buy books any more, so it doesn't happen very often any more. Occasionally I will get ebooks that are super cheap or free and I don't end up reading them, but I'm not really wasting a lot of money on those either, so no real harm done.
     
  6. deathbyprayer

    deathbyprayerActive Member

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    No, not really. I have a bunch of books lying around in my shelf and most of them aren't even out of the packaging yet. But whenever I open them I just try my best to finish them. Lucky for me I never bought the Game of Thrones books.
     
  7. Miaka_M

    Miaka_MActive Member

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    I purchased so many books, but I do remember that I have one single book that I've never read before. But the reason why I didn't read it is because I didn't read the first of the series. I thought that the book that I bought was volume 1, but it was actually volume 2 (it doesn't have numbers, you have to rely on the title alone) clearly I didn't have knowledge of the series and I ended up buying it and not reading it. This was about 8 years ago :/
     
  8. Jrh2

    Jrh2Member

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    I always read the books I buy but I buy so many books that sometimes it can take years until I read them, I would never not read a book though, even when I have been unbelievably bored reading a book I have still continued to the end in hope it got better (sadly the book I'm thinking of didn't but I've read it anyway).
     
  9. CrystalMarie

    CrystalMarieActive Member

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    If I am going to actually buy a book, I will make sure that I actually read it. Sometimes we start to read a book and it does not live up to our expectations. In this case, I might now finish reading it. For the most part though, I read all the books that I buy.
     
  10. Thejamal

    ThejamalActive Member

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    Always! Most books I buy are because I have some initial interest in reading the book. Even if I don't really like the book half-way through, I'll get to finishing it eventually.

    I just think not finishing a book is a waste of time of money if you don't finish it.
     
  11. whnuien

    whnuienActive Member

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    Most of the books I have were a gift from people who are close to me or were simply given to me because they don't need it anymore.

    I try my best to read all of them but sometimes I'm just too busy and I actually never finished reading some of them. I also tend to forget the other book as soon as I found another interesting one.
     
  12. prettycolors

    prettycolorsActive Member

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    I must admit, not all of them. Most times I buy them used and since they're so cheap I tend to buy lots of them. I simply don't have the time right now to read them all. All the books are written by authors I like so I'm pretty sure that when the time is right I'll read them all. But until then I try to maximize my reading time by reading when I travel, on the toilet or before sleep.
     
  13. Strykstar

    StrykstarActive Member

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    Let's put it this way:
    I buy every book with the intention of reading it, I have a few in backlog that I haven't read yet but I'm just waiting to go through the series I'm reading now.
     
  14. wander_n_wonder

    wander_n_wonderActive Member

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    It happens that I just keep on buying books, especially whenever I see a good title that's on sale, but I won't be able to read them right away. I think that's perfectly ok and I don't necessarily see that as a waste of money, mainly because I do know for a fact that in the future, I will still have time to read them. It's just a matter of scheduling.

    Also, I never resell or donate those books which I have not even read. At least I should be able to read them once before I consider giving them away.
     
  15. Ridge

    RidgeMember

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    I have a huge pile of books that I may never read, and I nees to come to terms with that soon. It isn't that they don't interest me. There just aren't enough hours in the day.
    Just like my piles of dvds or video games that I may never get to.
     
  16. Kitty Reeves

    Kitty ReevesActive Member

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    I have long since stopped buying psychical copies of books. All the paper books that I have, I have read once at the very least. I'm actually in the middle of trying to sell off a bunch of my books and manga.

    I have a bad habit of getting ebooks, and then never reading them though. I've got to have at least 10 books on my Kindle that I've bought in the past two years that I haven't even glanced at. Well, I haven't been reading much of anything lately. Mostly because we used to be able to read at the register when our store got slow and there was nothing else to do, but now you can't even bring your phone out onto the floor anymore. I understood that it was to stop younger and new employees from f*cking off and not actually working, but it sucks for every one else. I also just haven't been reading much in generally any more. I'll read a little bit of stories that have been posted online to read for free, but other then that...
     
  17. sidney

    sidneyWell-Known Member

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    On this age of e-books, I never buy books anymore unless I can't find a pdf version of it online. The last time I bought a book after many, many years was last 2013. I think for me it's just more practical to download e-books rather than buy books since physical books can be expensive and they take up room space.
     
  18. 003

    003Well-Known Member

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    No, some of the books I bought, I bought during the sale season, a season during which I splurge on books without thinking really hard. So, now I avoid going on a book shop on a sale season, because I am just gonna be tempted to buy books I wouldn't even be interested to read once I started reading it. The turnout is I just wasted my money!
     
  19. Dora M

    Dora MWell-Known Member

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    I have never bought a book that I haven't read from cover to cover. I love reading and always choose my reading material carefully. I think I will never be a fan of e-books, even though I have tried to overcome my aversion to electronic screens for a while now. I simply love the feeling, shape and smell of real books. And I will keep buying and reading them.