Dive In One Book At A Time
Now you know that reading is a fun and enjoyable way to help you recover your ability to focus for longer than a goldfish can (see article here), you’re looking for good places to get books.
The obvious place, of course, is Amazon, where I published my own books (get the productivity guide here). But maybe you would like to know about other places to get books, and where you can get good deals. August 14th is National Bookshop day, so now’s a great time to find out about some other options!
And I have some opinions about books and reading, some of which are extremely unpopular! See what you think – I’m curious how some of these land for you.
Great places to buy books that don’t support egomaniacal multibillionaires
I do have a love/hate relationship with the website that actually started by selling just books. Back in the 1990s, I remember being so excited about being able to order books so easily. Over time the site has grown and so has its owner’s ego, to the point that he dismantled a newspaper that was once a proud source of journalism.
However, the site is great for authors who don’t want to go the traditional publishing route, which can take years. Before I wrote my productivity book, I thought about whether I wanted to self-publish or go traditional. But the traditional process can easily take three years, and I didn’t want to wait that long.
That being said, most of the bookstores I’m going to discuss carry physical books. Most ebooks come out on Kindle (as does mine). If you don’t want to go with a company that’s continually enshittifying its service, you can check out ebooks from your library.
Library
In my opinion, the first stop for books you want to read should be your local library. I buy a lot of books, and I also go to my local library. One of the first things I do when I move to a new place is get my library card. You can also download other types of media from your local library as well.
Sometimes if they don’t have a book you want, you can ask them to carry it. I think this probably works better with smaller libraries, but I don’t know for sure. Don’t worry about us authors – we like it when you check out their books from the library as opposed to buying them, for a variety of reasons.
Brick and mortar book retailers
The next obvious place is Barnes & Noble. (Pour one out for Waldenbooks and Borders, sigh.) It’s a pretty reliable spot to get new releases, though. They have a very wide variety of books, and you can spend some pleasant time browsing. If your town doesn’t have other bookstores, you might end up using it as your local.
I still have my OG Readers Advantage card as a member, and every once in a while the clerk at the register recognizes and is amazed by the artifact. I think it now costs about $30 or $40 a year to be a member, but if you buy a lot of books you will absolutely get your money’s worth in discounts.
But if you have local bookstores, it’s a great idea to try them first. They’ll probably have smaller selections, but that’s not always a bad thing. You’re supporting your local economy, and the staff is often fun to talk to and very knowledgeable about the books they carry.
If you read a specific genre, you might find a store that carries those exclusively. Although there aren’t a ton of them, I know of several mystery-specific stores and I’m pretty sure I’ve heard of at least one that carries romance. I believe there are some shops that focus on horror as well.
Other online retailers
I love going to bookstores and browsing and looking at all the little trinkets and things, but sometimes you just need to order a book. Maybe your library doesn’t have it or there are 100 people waiting for it ahead of you and your local doesn’t carry it. I’ve found two excellent places to order online.
Thriftbooks.com is the place to go online for used books. All books have condition ratings from Very Good to Acceptable. Depending on how much you want to pay, you might have to put up with a hardcover missing the jacket or someone else’s notes on the page.
I don’t think you’ll find a lot of new releases, but they have a pretty huge selection otherwise. I haven’t done it myself, but you can also sell them back your used books. The downside is that sometimes it takes a bit longer for them to locate the book and then send it to you.
Bookshop.org donates a percentage of your purchase to local bookstores. If your local participates in the program, you can designate it to receive the donation. They also have a pretty good selection, and I find the lead time often isn’t quite as long as for Thriftbooks.
Neither site can give you two-day shipping, but I don’t mind waiting. If you’re reading this on LinkedIn I’m not linking the websites (to play nice with the algorithm), but you can certainly type them into your browser of choice. Mine is DuckDuckGo because I’m tired of Google ramming Gemini into everything.
Reading hills I will die on – will you?
Some of my opinions may seem fairly uncontroversial. Others you’ll probably think are terrible, because a lot of people do. If you have a strong reaction one way or another, please let me know in the comments!
Don’t stick to nonfiction just because you’re a business owner
I think a lot of entrepreneurs and people in the C Suite think that serious businesspeople should only read serious books, which usually means non-fiction. I’m not saying not read non-fiction – after all, my books are all non-fiction!
I also think people who are really big into optimization tend to believe that you optimize reading time by reading about your business or history or similar topics. But as I’ve said over and over again, if you need a reason to be reading fiction (besides it’s FUN), it helps develop empathy.
And empathy is the quality leaders need to have in the 21st century. You could get away with low EQ (emotional intelligence) back in the 1900s when leadership was top-down, command-and-control, but the world has changed (in my view, for the better.) Fiction helps you see and experience the world through someone else’s eyes, which helps you develop empathy.
Setting a goal for number of books you’ll read in a year is not a good idea
Measurement, contrary to popular opinion in some quarters, isn’t always something that benefits you. Not everything needs to be quantified, and many things shouldn’t be. (Like how many books you read, IMHO.)
If you’re getting back into reading to help you regain focus, it might take you some time to read an entire book, and there’s nothing wrong with that. If you set a goal for a certain number of books and miss it, you’re going to be disappointed with yourself and it might turn you off reading again. I think the goal of reading a certain number of books also makes reading less fun.
I also believe that having a number goal will prevent you from really spending time with books, especially longer books. I’ve got a Dostoevsky book on my TBR (to be read) pile, and his writing requires much slower reading than, say, the latest crime thriller. You might be interested in a book that’s longer than standard, but not try it because it’ll take longer for you to finish it and you might worry you won’t reach your goal.
If you absolutely must have a goal, other than reading is fun and helps you redevelop your attention span, try a book challenge or book bingo. (Just type those phrases into your search browser. Do not use AI.)
These are a lot more fun, because they can get you reading different types of books. I’ve seen games where there might be a square for a book with a red cover, or a book with a rose on it. Or a book set at the beach and a book set in the mountains. You can use one book that covers several different challenges (a book with a red cover that’s set in the mountains, for example), and that will help you reach your goal in a fun way.
Read whatever you like, even if it isn’t Very Serious and even if the author isn’t well-known
There are several popular authors that I don’t enjoy, and so I don’t read their stuff. I don’t care that they’re a bestseller on the whatever list. I don’t care that Serious People read their books.
Literary fiction can be elitist, in all honesty. These are the types of books that Serious People like to discuss, and from time to time I enjoy them. These are the important novels that get on all those Official Lists that Serious People should read, and although they can be enjoyable, they’re not always.
Genre fiction may be looked down on by the Serious People, but they’re often a lot more fun to read. Mystery, crime, thriller, fantasy, romance, romantasy, or spy novels may be what’s in your wheelhouse. Great. Read them and enjoy.
If you don’t like reading one book, then move on to the next
When I was younger, I would continue reading books, even the ones I loathed. As I grew older, I thought, there’s no reason to do this. And a book that I didn’t finish might be your favorite, and vice versa.
Again, if it happens to be a book that Serious People are discussing, but you don’t like it, you can still put it down. I try to give books a fair shake and read a bit of it before I decide it’s not worth pursuing further, but there have been a few books I tossed after only a few pages. I can’t get into David Foster Wallace at all, for example. And I tried to read Hamnet for an online course I was taking, but I hated the writing style so much I think I dumped it after about five pages.
You might love those books. I’m only pointing out that just because a lot of people enjoy a book or an author doesn’t mean you will, and you don’t need to bother about stuff you’re not liking.
Adults should not be reading mostly YA (young adult) novels
This one is pretty controversial. Again, I’m not saying that as an adult, you can never read YA. I’ve read a few as an adult, though most of them I read accidentally.
And if you’re a reader, yes, you absolutely can tell when a book is YA. I’m usually a few chapters in when I think, Oh sh*t, this is YA.
I tend to pick up books in the store by reading the description on the back or inside jacket. I’m a big fan of the “dark academia” trope, which generally means something sinister happening in a college or other learning institution.
(Side rant: the first book that launched dark academia is usually credited to Donna Tartt's The Secret History, which is a good book but absolutely NOT the start of dark academia. That honor belongs to Golden Age writer Dorothy Sayers and her Lord Peter Wimsey/Harriet Vane book Gaudy Night. My copy of this book is torn and damaged due to how many times I’ve read it. So good.)
Sometimes YA does dark academia, and if it gets shelved in the adult section I might pick it up. Sometimes the back blurb isn’t quite enough to identify it as YA to me, and that’s how I have accidentally read some. (Though sometimes I’ll pick up a popular book to see what it’s about, like I did with The Hunger Games.)
The reason YA isn’t great for adults is because it’s very simplistic compared to an adult novel. The characters tend to be very black-and-white. The story is not very complex and even the sentence structure is dumbed down compared to adult novels. That’s how I can tell once I start reading, even if I got wrongly seduced by the back copy.
You can find fantasy and romantasy for adults, so you don’t have to give up interesting and imagined worlds when you read adult fiction instead of YA.
On the other hand, you might be curious what your young adult is reading, if you’re lucky enough to have one who’s a reader. So reading a YA novel can help you relate to what they’re experiencing, and maybe even help you have some conversations.
Just don’t avoid more complex books for adults, because wrestling with things that are a bit more complex helps develop more critical thinking and empathy.
Listening to books is not the same as reading
Yeah, this is the one that brings out the pitchforks.
If you’re reading to improve your focus, then listening to books will probably make your attention span worse. That’s because you‘ll be doing something else while you’re listening, which defeats the entire purpose of actually reading and training your focus. (There are studies that show students who read the material do better on quizzes than those who listened to it instead.)
Even if you’re not trying to restore your focus, reading is not the same as listening. When you were very young, your parents probably told you stories or read them to you. Later, you learned to read on your own. If there’s no difference in brain processing between them, then why don’t you read as young as when you listen to stories?
Although some of the brain regions are the same, they’re not entirely interchangeable processes. It’s easier to wrestle with difficult language or ideas when you read, because you can usually reread more easily than you relisten.
I’m not saying that you should never listen to books! If that’s your thing, go for it. But if you want to extend your attention span and increase your ability to focus, listening to books instead of reading them won’t get you there.
Recap (tl;dr):
There are plenty of ways to get books that you want to read, and it’s worth exploring beyond your internet browser.
I won’t be mad if you buy my book, and you will have to read it since I don’t have an audio version available.