I’ve been obsessed by books all my life, and it didn’t change when I came to US; it just got a little hard to find my next read. Why? I was lost. I didn’t know where to buy a book, which author to read from, what genre of book to try. Don’t get me wrong, I had my favorite authors and genres; the problem was that now I wasn’t reading in my native language. Those types of books that I used to read, and when I say read I mean 200 pages a day, were challenging to read in English specially in the beginning, and as a graduate student I didn’t have that much time.
The first bookstore I visited here in US was Barnes and Noble. Around here you can find the store in almost all the malls and some of the smaller shopping centers. I love all types of bookstores, so it was easy to fell in love with the atmosphere. I could go there, sit for hours and read. I could browse, read a paragraph or two from each book and choose. It took a couple of months, but finally I found out which ones are my favorite shelves in the store. Now, I have the membership for 25$ a year, and I receive occasional coupons plus 10% discount on the books.
Going to a bookstore has its own merits, but as a graduate student who buys too many books, I needed to find a cheaper place to buy books. And that’s where Amazon saved me. Yes, you cannot go there, walk between the shelves, smell the books, and feel them, but you can see the best books of the week/month/year/ in different categories, you can read the reviews, you can read a short sample from most of the books and get some sense about them, you can decide between different versions, and not only hard copies are cheaper on Amazon, you can buy the digital version, have it with you almost all the time, and pay less. I love the fact that I can see a book, buy it, and have it on my phone/laptop/Kindle in less than a minute to read.
Kindle Unlimited is a rather new service Amazon offers. There’s a 30-day free trial and after that if you want to keep it, you should pay $9.99 a month. Through this service, you can borrow anything you want from a large selection of e-books and audiobooks. The catch is you cannot really find everything you want there, so if you’re looking for something in specific, it’s better to check for their selection before you join.
When I’m busy, I prefer audio books. I can listen to them when I walk to school or home, at night when I cannot keep my eyes open, and on my coffee or lunch break. Audio books are generally more expensive though. You can find a collection of classic or older books online for free, but for most of the audio books you have to pay. Audible is another service Amazon offers; again you have a free month trial and after that you have to pay $14.95 a month and with that you get to buy one book free each month and use nice discounts on other books. I know it’s still expensive. If you get the free trial and try to cancel it because of the price, they offer you a membership with 8$ a month rate for a month or two.
If you don’t want to keep the books or they seem expensive, you can always join a library. Going to school here, OC public libraries are our best choice. If you think you don’t have time to go there and pick up a book, which is the same thing I thought, you need to know that almost all the libraries have a digital section now, and you can use websites/apps like Overdrive to borrow e-books and even audiobooks.
Anyway, just wanted to say books are fun!