Book

Although I have a Kindle now which I find very handy when I travel or for reading in bed I still own a lot of books. I like all kinds of books, some science fiction, detective stories, biographies, history and even some of the genre known as chick lit. I also have a small collection of doll books. Although I do a lot of my researching online those books are very handy to quickly look something up and I enjoy the illustrations a lot more in a book.

When David and I lived in South Australia there was a big second-hand book sale two or three times a year at the Dom Polski Hall in Adelaide and we always went, the proprietors got to know us by name over the years. When we first visited in the late seventies or early eighties, the cheapest books were fifty cents each. We were very hard up at the time so it was great to spend five dollars and come away with a big pile of new reading material. In later years I mostly spent a little more to buy nice hardcover books. I can still remember how we would browse the many tables of books for a couple of hours. I don’t think we ever left empty-handed.

However,  these days lots of people seem to be ditching their books because they are downsizing. We get lots of them donated to the Op Shop and keeping the bookroom in some kind of order has become one of my pet projects. It’s a small room and there is never enough room for all the books. We do have our regular customers amongst the locals and we sell quite a few books to holidaymakers too. They often come in for books, jigsaw puzzles and board games to pass the time with.

There are other ways to dispose of unwanted books too. At the Botanical Gardens in Hobart, there is an area called The Burrow. It’s a small room with shelves of donated books which are available for visitors to the gardens to read and even take home if they wish. People often drop donations of books and magazines there too.

There is also the Little Free Library Organisation.

According to their website, they are the largest free book sharing network in the world.  There are a couple of registered libraries in Tasmania and I suspect there may be a few unofficial ones as well. I am pretty sure I’ve seen one in Geeveston although I’ve never used it.

Some people use books to create art too. At Maker’s On Church Street in Geeveston, you can buy paper flowers and other items made from the pages of old books.

I still enjoy browsing in secondhand book shops and there are a couple of good ones in Hobart. The one pictured is my favourite kind, cluttered and you never know what you will find.