This is a bit of a discussion starter, but lately I've found myself looking for places to go to just browse and not spend a lot of money. But I've failed, for context I live in South Africa, and while I know where a few pre-owned bookstores are they'r either extremely disorganised to the point of being dangerous to enter or so overpriced it's more affordable to buy new.
I am going to date myself here, but in the mid to late 2000s I remember walking home from high school and there being plenty of options to walk to. Bookstores that had old books in relatively good condition for extremely low prices. Nowadays it seems things have changed with the internet making it hard to find brick-and-mortar deals.
If I do find a store with good books all the actually interesting books are priced way above what they honestly should be. I walked into a book store the other day and Order of the Phoenix was priced over R200, it was used, had damage all over it, and had no signature or anything.
Brandon Sanderson books are near impossible to get for me as well. Above all, I miss that these kinds of shops used to just be pretty neutral about their pricing and they also felt much more welcoming. All the ones I used to go to either closed or the owners retired and sold the shop.
I miss the days of going to a local bookstore, going to the overly filled fantasy section and either finding a diamond in the rough or even discovering an old series of books that you would normally have overlooked.
Hell, that's how I discovered Diane Duane and Diana Wynne Jones. Anyone else feel this way?
by sock0puppet