I’m not supposed to like Amazon. I don’t like globalism, big business or the triumph of the conglomerate over the little guy. But oh, I love books. Lots of books. Big ones, little ones, worthy ones and embarrassingly tacky ones. And I like my books cheap, and Amazon, the whore, panders to my desires. I promise myself I won’t return, that I will frequent the local independent book seller, but honestly, who is supposed to browse in a used book store with two children under the age of, oh, I don’t know, 20? Amazon lets me shop quietly at night while the children are asleep and never raises their eyebrows at my choices. They package them up and as long as I spend $25, they ship them to me free and oh, I love free shipping. I don’t really like that Amazon sells pretty much everything you could ever try to buy, including, of all things, organic food, but I love free shipping and I love cheap books.

I have tried abebooks, which is a sort of a search engine for used books sold by all sorts of different sellers. But the books there are often just a little too expensive for used books and once you add shipping charges, well, usually I scuttle guiltily back to Amazon to spend the same amount of money and get shiny new copies. Today, however, I found what might be an answer.

Thriftbooks. They’re a relatively small operation and they sell their books cheap. Really cheap, even once you add the cost of shipping (which is clearly where they’re making their money). So, for example, just now I bought seven books for twenty dollars of which 17 was the shipping. Doesn’t matter that the real cost of the book is hidden in the shipping. It works out as less than three bucks a book. I’m in love.

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