Secondhand books, e-books, and book swap

In the last post, I mentioned blogs who sell secondhand books. Yesterday, I discovered a few (they link each other, which is convenient), and have even bought 3 books from one of them. Here there are:
http://bookhaven-bookhaven.blogspot.com/
http://galleriabookaholics.blogspot.com/
http://thebookslover.blogspot.com/
http://booksrlove.blogspot.com/
http://wonderfulreads4sale.blogspot.com
http://bibliotaphic.blogspot.com/

I guess sites like www.mudah.com.my, www.lelong.com.my etc would also have sellers advertising secondhand books too, but I haven’t ‘looked around’. Not quite the same par compared to browsing in a carboot sale in terms of variety and value, but at least I have an alternative to buying new (expensive) books.

And talking about secondhand books, I’m letting go of 2 books which I don’t wish to keep (not that they are not good, just that I don’t think I’ll read them again): Intimacy (a novel), Midnight All Day & Other Stories by Hanif Kureishi and The Harmony Silk Factory by Tash Aw at RM20 each (inclusive of postage) or RM35 for both (inclusive of postage). Both are in very good condition because they are only read once (not MHH’s type of book). If you are interested, do email me at simpli.siti@yah00.com

I would also like to share with you a few more sites. www.dailylit.com has been introduced to me by Aina Ana. They email to you portions of a book at a regular interval. Most books comes at a price, however some are free, especially those already a public property or royalty-free (books whose authors has died for 50 years), so naturally the free books are classics. Somehow, I chose to try War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy. I usually (unintentionally) avoid books with the word ‘war’ in their titles, but the synopsis sounds pretty interesting, so why not. Afterall, the book must be famous and well-liked for a reason. Getting 2 emails per week feels quite strange, for someone who can devour a whole book in one sitting. Sometimes it feels like I’m watching a tv series, where I would have to wait for the next installment to know what happens next. Sometimes I forgot some characters or scenes and I would have to refer to the old emails. And at 2 emails per week, with 663 parts to be emailed, I would take over 6 years to finish this book! I could have increased the number of emails, perhaps to 1 email a day, but I found that when I’m busier and skip reading Dailylit emails, I feel less motivated to go back to the piling emails in later days. In short, this style is not for me, too little control for my liking.

The next website is new to me, I haven’t explored it much. www.scribd.com shows the content of the books on the site itself. Which is not that convenient for me. I’m also not sure in terms of copyright issues. I actually prefer a hardcopy to an ebook anytime. Unless of course I have a gadget like Kindle. This http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/meta/titles.html is an e-library that contains over 1300 free ebooks, all of which are public property if I’m not mistaken (thanks Achik for this link). Very good selection, but again, I haven't gotten the hang of reading (long) ebooks from the laptop.

I’ve had two book swaps with Ummu Auni, 3 books each swap, and I really appreciated that - new reads at minimal costs! I’ve decided to invite others who want to swap books with me. If I do a book review, I’ll state whether the book is available for swap or not. The book A Prisoner of Birth by Jeffery Archer in the last review are available for swaps. So are Imam by Abdullah Hussain and Mengapa Saya Bekerja compiled by Ir Endok Sempo Mohd Tahir. Well I have other books too, but I’m not going to start listing them all here. I can email you the list though. If you are interested please email me at simpli.siti@yah00.com

Hmm I might as well mention the online bookstores I usually go to for new books.
www.mph.com.my For trade books in general.
www.bookcafe.com.my For books published by PTS.
www.ujanailmu.com.my For books in Bahasa Melayu.
http://firstedition.com.my Introduced by Suraiya. I haven’t bought any from this site yet, but they have imported Dar-us-Salam books (they publish English translations of Tafsir Ibn Kathir, Sahih Bukhari, Sahih Muslim, etc), which I have my eyes on. The Malay titles looks interesting too.