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LET’S TALK BOOKISH: DO YOU BUY BOOKS WITH INTENTION? 11/04/2025

Let’s Talk Bookish is a weekly meme created by Rukky @Eternity Books and co-hosted by Aria @Book Nook Bits and Dini @DiniPandaReads! In this discussion meme, participants get to talk about certain topics, share opinions, and spread the love by visiting each other’s posts! Learn more about LTB, past topics and future topics HERE. Happy Friday! How have you all been? It is time for another LTB as…

Lin’s Perspective
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Let’s Talk Bookish is a weekly meme created by Rukky @Eternity Books and co-hosted by Aria @Book Nook Bits and Dini @DiniPandaReads! In this discussion meme, participants get to talk about certain topics, share opinions, and spread the love by visiting each other’s posts! Learn more about LTB, past topics and future topics HERE.

Happy Friday! How have you all been? It is time for another LTB as always I’m ecstatic when this meme is due! The little one is fine, thankfully, we just need to boost the haemoglobin a bit 🙂

Today’s Prompts: Do you buy books randomly or do you think about what to buy? How do you decide which books to buy vs which books to borrow or just save for later? For books at the top of your TBR, is your go-to buying a book or do you check your library first? What book formats do you own most of—physical books, ebooks, or audiobooks?

Do You Buy Books With Intention? (Jillian @ The Bookish Butterfly)

Do you buy books randomly or do you think about what to buy?

I guess it is time to confess… YES, I do buy books at random LOL! If I see a title I have been wanting to read that is discounted or full price regardless I will get it (for the full price I really must want to read lol) I often find myself buying books simply because of their cover…

Absolutely no shame, no guilt here haha I do not care. Spending money on books is my, ok not the only one, but one of the few vices I have (at least I would like to think so…) I don’t smoke, I don’t drink, I don’t gamble, let me have my boooooks!!!

How do you decide which books to buy vs which books to borrow or just save for later?

If a book I want to read is currently too expensive to buy I would try to borrow it from my library. I have so many books on my wish list saved for later that I am keeping a close eye on for discounts or for just whenever I decide I cannot wait any longer and buy it regardless of the price.

As mentioned many times books here are expensive, I do buy English versions which are even more pricey, simply because they are not yet translated into Bulgarian. Honestly, I don’t like reading translated books, since I can understand it (for the bigger part) I’d rather read the book in its original language. And by the time they buy the rights and translate them and start distributing them over here a long time can go by.

For books at the top of your TBR, is your go-to buying a book or do you check your library first?

I check my library first if the wait is too long and the book is at an acceptable price at the time I might purchase it. I personally don’t have a set TBR as a mood reader I pick whatever book I am in the mood for. But yes, library first, Amazon next, bank account last...

What book formats do you own most of—physical books, ebooks, or audiobooks?

Definitely e-books! hahaha and audiobooks, I used to have loads of physical books but they are all scattered between Italy-UK-South Korea and somewhere here in Bulgaria lol. All the countries I have lived in have received a few hundred + physical books from me, unfortunately, I was never able to recover them so yeah e-books it is. Especially now with the baby, I find it much easier to read e-books and listen to audiobooks.

Happy reading and have a great day! Let me know your take on this!

12 responses to “LET’S TALK BOOKISH: DO YOU BUY BOOKS WITH INTENTION? 11/04/2025”

  1. Laurie avatar
    Laurie

    Do the Bulgarian libraries have English books? The Dutch ones hardly have. And funny that it’s the other way around here, the English books are often cheaper than Dutch books because we have a set book price for Dutch books which is regulated by law. So for the first year, books aren’t allowed to be discounted. And yes I totally get you about translations, but I sometimes prefer to read a book in my native language. Especially when I’m super busy.

    My post: https://laurieisreading.com/2025/04/11/lets-talk-bookish-buying-books-with-intention/

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    1. Lin's Perspective avatar
      Lin’s Perspective

      They do, yes! But when it comes to ebooks not so much and they don’t always have new books either. Most of their catalog is based of off old Bulgarian books, which is totally fine, but I don’t tend to read books in old Bulgarian lol 😆 from the 19th century… here we don’t have such a law but books are becoming more and more pricey. All of my Bookish friends from here buy and read books in English now that I think about it. This is mostly due to the lack of Bulgarian literature with the exception of Georgi Gospodinov, who won a recognition for his novel Time Shelter that I wanted to get in Bulgarian but was around 40BGN that is 20€+ so ended up buying the English version for 10€… go figure. We do have other authors of course but I don’t enjoy reading in Bulgarian I don’t know why…

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  2. Emma avatar
    Emma

    Glad the little is doing okay!
    Cover buys are so hard to resist haha! I’m sorry that English books are so expensive for you, perhaps it might be worth having a look at Bookshop.org, or Blackwells (UK store). They both ship worldwide and it might end up being better value?

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    1. Lin's Perspective avatar
      Lin’s Perspective

      Thank you, Emma! And yes cover buys are a huge issue for me! From all of the places I have lived in still think books in the UK are the cheapest! And I think books should be made affordable for anyone really instead of other harmful things that I will not get into right now.. but will definitely check these options out thank you for sharing!

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  3. WordsAndPeace avatar
    WordsAndPeace

    So happy your baby is healthy!
    I rent a small house and have a small budget, so the little room we have, we use it to buy spiritual books only (we are Christian Orthodox). So I about never buy fiction, besides a few books at book sales. Though I got a bunch of classic scifi last year and haven’t read them yet, so I’m not going to buy anything this year.
    I own very few ebooks – I usually get them from my library. I get audiobooks from my library or from a subscription – BookBeat, that’s cheaper than the most famous one.

    If you need some specific ebooks, even in Bulgarian, let me know, I should be able to find them for you.

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    1. Lin's Perspective avatar
      Lin’s Perspective

      Thank you, Emma! She is her happy self and always wants to play and smile haha.

      We are Christian Orthodox too! With a little bit of Catholicism thrown in there due to a great-great-grandmother from Italy. I do not read spiritual books actually I never came across them to be interested in them if that makes sense. Do you have Dune? This is another one I want to read I think it was written in the 60s? Since they made the movie my interest in the books sparked.
      I have not heard of BookBeat will have a look and see if it will be cheaper for me since libro.fm does not do it for me.

      Thank you! Luckily I don’t have issues finding books it is the price haha but will let you know if maybe there is more affordable.

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  4. Let’s Talk Bookish: Buying Books with Intention – dinipandareads avatar
    Let’s Talk Bookish: Buying Books with Intention – dinipandareads

    […] @ A Dance with BooksLin @ Lin’s PerspectiveAlli @ Alli the Book GiraffeElle @ Unwrapping WordsLeyre @ Read You LeyreEmma @ Pages of EmmaRachael […]

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  5. Dini @ dinipandareads avatar
    Dini @ dinipandareads

    Oh, how so very relatable… I used to do a lot more “cover buys” but since I’ve started making some type of book catalogue of the titles I own, I’ve pretty much stopped because I have a hard enough time resisting buying books for titles I already know about. I certainly don’t need to add more reasons to buy books to my list! 🤣 I really really love those 99p deals though, haha! I don’t read Indonesian books (including ones translate from English) because my knowledge of it is not the best but I really wish I did because they’re so much cheaper compared to physical copies of English books. I hate that they’re so expensive but it makes me more grateful knowing that I have access to Amazon UK!

    Great post! Thanks for participating in LTB this week 🙂

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  6. Shoto avatar
    Shoto

    As someone who moved around, the last part really hit different for me lol – my books are also scattered between countries and different friend’s and family member’s apartments (and second hand book stores lol)
    And definitely feel ya on needing to buy books which have long wait times at the library!

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    1. Lin's Perspective avatar
      Lin’s Perspective

      Tell me about it!! In the UK I left 5 big boxes of books, and there is no way I can get them back unless I hire a van lol. Same as here, I told my husband if one day we buy our own house/flat I will build my own library but for now space is a huge issue and with the baby, I am high on ebooks haha
      I have to wait 12 weeks for a book sometimes from the library some are not even bought yet so they don’t have them over here, might as well buy it! Thank you for stopping by!

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  7. Annemieke avatar
    Annemieke

    Oh that is a shame you had to leave all those books behind in previous countries. (but I get because it is too expensive to get that all shipped)

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    1. Lin's Perspective avatar
      Lin’s Perspective

      It was indeed, but like you said, it would have been very expensive to ship them, and it was not worth it. Besides, even if I did get them back, they would have been put in the attic and forgotten about since our place is full of baby stuff, haha. I am happy that those books have been donated to second-hand independent book shops 🙂

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