My husband’s brother and his wife gave us gift certificates to Barnes and Noble for Christmas… they must know us well. The package didn’t come until after, but better late than never! We had fun ordering books (since there’s no B&N around here — our town is much too small for that — we used B&N.com) and half arrived yesterday. What fun!
My order came yesterday, and in it was: Inkheart, Dragonsong, Dragonsinger, and Eats, Shoots & Leaves (you can tell where my interests lie!)
What’s still to come (hubby’s order): Speaker for the Dead, Dooms Day Book, and What are People For? (that’s not exactly his interests; if left to his own wishes, there’d be some political and/or philosophy books there… granted, they’re also more expensive…)
The only one we haven’t previously read is the Wendell Berry book, and he’s got a decent enough track record with us that we felt comfortable buying that one new.
See, although I love books, I hate buying them unless I know I’m going to like the book. (Which is why we have more picture books than anything around the house; they’re so much easier to judge the worth of than a fiction or non-fiction book.) I just can’t justify spending money on a book, then not absolutely loving it. In my opinion, that’s what libraries are for: to weed out all the “bad” books. I feel much less guilty about not finishing a book I’ve checked out than one that I’ve bought. So, instead of buying new books, we focused on filling in the gaps to our little collection. No matter: I still can’t wait to re-read them!
The Book Nut 
That’s how I do it too–although it seems the last few years I’ve developed this edgy risk-taking edge, where I just wander into Borders and grab a book I’ve never heard of before. Completely frivolous. I almost always end up selling them back to the big used store, because I am almost always disappointed in them.What Are People For is one I really love, although Berry’s books, much as I admire them, always make me feel so worldly and corrupt. You can bet W.B. never wanders into Borders and buys odd titles without first checking their references.
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I really have a hard time buying books that I’m not already quite sure about. So my book-buying policy is the same as yours.I like to browse B&N to see what’s new, then check those books out of the library.
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I have Eats, Shoots and Leaves and must admit that I read the first and almost second chapters. I just wish the author would get on with it. She spends so much time telling you about how she is so offended yet rarely gets to the point. It made me crazy. Maybe I’ll give it a second chance.
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I’m the same way about buying books. Just about the only books I’m willing to purchase are reference books that I KNOW I’m going to use over and over again. Like cookbooks. And even those I generally check out of the library for a trial period first.
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