This past weekend, Hastings was having an amazing book sale. Buy one used book, get the second and third for $1 each. Their used books are already reasonably priced, so it was a great deal! My husband and I had all kinds of fun driving to a few Hastings locations searching for books.
The Hastings book section is fairly large. It’s divided by Fiction, History, Biographies, Reference, Language, etc. Whenever we go to Hastings to look for books, I have a method for my madness. First, I check for old copies of Gone With the Wind (none this time).
Then, I head to the language section to check for French learning books. My husband found some used ones and we narrowed it down to 3 to add to our library:
Then I check the medical/health section for any anatomy & physiology books for work (none this time). I use them a lot when writing appeal letters.
After that, I head to history and biographies. Then onto Classics. I picked up two classics this time:
Then FINALLY I head to the fiction books. I have a list of books I want to read, so I search for those first. Then I look for my favorite authors to see if there’s anything new. Then, after that, here’s what I do:
I judge books by their covers.
Gasp!! I know, I know. But it’s true. When I’m looking for a new author or just new books that I’ve never heard of, I look at the covers. There’s not any one particular thing that attracts me to a certain book cover. If I see one that I like, I pick it up and read the jacket flap. If it looks like an interesting read, then I check it out on two different websites (from my phone): Goodreads and Amazon. If it got a good rating on both sites, then I will get it. Here’s a few that I had never heard of before, but I loved the covers and they got good ratings:
But I don’t always judge books by their covers. Like this one:
Normally, I never would have picked up this book. The cover didn’t appeal to me. BUT, the author did. Julian Fellowes? Yep. The creator of Downton Abbey. Yes please! (AND the book got good reviews).
And this one:
I LOVE historical fiction, so I had to get this one.
Sometimes the books that I judge by the covers are great, sometimes they are duds. But at these super cheap prices at Hastings, it’s a risk I’m willing to take ha ha.
We also ended up with lots of history books and Tom Clancy books. I like the history ones too, but my husband is the history buff. And Tom Clancy is pretty much the only fiction books he will read, so he rounded out his collection.
We bought 3 new books as well. One all about the Tower of London.
I’m excited to read it! We also got ‘Scorch Trials’, which is the 2nd book of the Maze Runner series.
And Johnny Tremain. I had asked my husband what his favorite book was as a kid and he said Johnny Tremain.
I had never heard of it, but I found it at Hastings and bought it for him. Apparently it was a Newbery winner and everything. It’s about a 14 year old kid in 1773 Boston. I believe that everyone should have a copy of their favorite book as a kid. I had lots of favorites, but the one I remember reading the most was ‘Ramona Quimby, Age 8'. Which I own of course. :)
It was a great day and a great sale! We had so much fun. Buying books for cheap like this is perfect for me. Lately I’ve stayed away from the library because I take forever to read books. It’s because I usually am reading 6 or 7 different ones at once. I realize this is unusual, but it’s just how I like to do it. So it takes me forever to finish reading a book (way longer than the library allows, even with renewing it). Oh well. But with buying them I can take as long as I want!!
I hope Hastings does another sale like this one again (the sale ended on Saturday)….but not until I’ve already read some of my new books!
