USED BOOKS

As I stated in a previous post I have recently picked up the habit of reading. I know, such a novel (get it? HA!) hobby nowadays but I am thoroughly enjoying myself. Recently, I finished Fifth Business by Robertson Davies. This novel was recommended by my friend Adam Hollett a few years ago, and while I had it in my belonging for quite some time I never bothered to read it. I started it 4 days ago and I purposely stayed inside all weekend in order to finish it. Personally, I thought the book was a wonderfully written novel about the toil and triumph of a man throughout his eccentric life.

Being a university student it had led me to be fairly frugal with my money. To the point where I have contemplated taking toilet paper from the bathrooms at school, however I have never followed through with such a thought. It had come to my attention that books are expensive at your typical bookstores (Coles, Chapters, etc...) so I set out to find a used book store that could meet at my needs.

Seeing how this is a fairly new hobby, I had no idea what to look for in a used book store. In my many adventures around town I often drive by a huge sign that says "USED BOOKS". This was the first place that came to mind when I thought of used books (obviously) so I went there first. Pulling up to the store I realized that the building was fairly large, which seemed like a good quality becasue it probably had lots of books.

Upon entering the store I was greeted by an extremely friendly employee. Since I was rather hesitant walking in and carefully looked around to get a bearing of my surroundings he obviously knew it was my first time. He kindly asked if he could help and I pulled out my list (Yes, I had a list of books, I wanted to keep them straight). To my delight he seemed to frequently deal with customers who had lists and snatched the peice of paper from between my fingers while quickly scanning it.

"Robertson Davies!" he exclaimed. "I'm assuming you've read Fifth Business, boy was that ever an amazing book. If you liked the first I can vouch for the other two, they are fantastic novels!" Within minutes I was blindly following him through the store, still looking around to get my bearings. He took me to the Canadian author section and to my delight both The Manticore and World of Wonders were there....for the low price of 1.95 each! I was overjoyed that both books were there, but even more joyous of the fact that they cost so little. Within no time the store clerk was gone to the Classic section in search of the other books on my list.

Sadly, the store did not have any Nabakov but they did have Animal Farm and 1984 by George Orwell. While these books were a little more expensive (2.05 and 4.95 respectively) I thought that for 11 dollars four books was a fantastic deal. I was elated that I got these (hopefully) fantastic books for such a low price and I vowed to come back next week to check out their stock.

So this blog post turned out to be much longer than anticipated. But I guess that is bound to happen when someone is overjoyed with such a great find.