Books!

I'm a voracious reader. I'm also not rich. :)

That said, I'll tell ya, I've gotten to love Books-a-million and Amazon.com.

Books-a-million is a chain that often has books on *great* sales (and a decent selection of books in any case.) Books I wouldn't normally pick up, I'll grab there in hardback for as much as, if not cheaper than, a softcover.

For instance, I just went over there. Got my mom one of the Bourne novels (in hardback) that she hadn't seen for $8. Picked up Sandworms of Dune (I just haven't been fond of how they've been "closing" the series, and was going to just skip this one)... for $7, hardback. Picked up a book I'd never heard of ("Mistress of Dragons) for $4, hardback, and some good Terry Pratchett (all pratchett is good) in hardback... also for $7.

Individually? Each of those go for around $25. So, $100 worth of books for just under thirty bucks, and it'll keep me reading for at least a week. (No, I'm not kidding, I will go through them that fast.)

In addition, the people there generally love books - so I got turned on to a new series (well, old series, but new to me - 1983 or so it looks like) called the "Uplift saga" by David Brin. Well, they didn't have it in stock, and I didn't want to spend a lot of money... so Amazon to the rescue. A penny a piece for the first three, plus shipping. Twelve bucks, three books (the first three, there are more.) This after getting my copy of "At dawn we slept" replaced for five (waiting for it to show up) and "Midway," by the same author... also for five bucks.

Reading is important. Literacy is vital. Cheap is awesome.