George Orwell famously compared the costs of reading and smoking in his 1946 essay Books vs Cigarettes, estimating that he spent £25 a year on reading and £40 on tobacco; large sums when the average wage was £6 a week for men. Few people today have a 6oz-a-week tobacco habit but many of us spend hundreds of pounds a year on books. That’s spending you can easily cut, while still reading all the literature you love. Here’s our guide to the best deals for bookworms, from e-readers to historic members’ libraries.
E-reading
E-books are mostly much cheaper than new printed books, with bestsellers such as Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl, which will soon be released as a film starring Rosamund Pike, available for £2.99 in the Amazon Kindle edition, compared with the recommended retail price (RRP) of £8.99. An e-reader lets you store thousands of titles in a slim device, so you could carry your library with you on your commute or holiday and declutter at home.
CNET.com, the technology website, recommends the Amazon Kindle Paperwhite (£99, Tesco.com) as the best e-reader, praising its light weight, paper-like reading experience, lighting and ultra-long battery life. The downsides are that it can be a pain to convert files if you buy e-books from stores other than Amazon, and the Kindle is not compatible with e-book downloads available from public libraries. CNET suggests the Kobo Glo eReader (£79.99, WH Smith) as a good alternative.
New books
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Many people still prefer traditional books, especially for titles they expect to read more than once. The cheapest deals are online, often at Amazon, with Gone Girl at £3.50, for example, and Paul Hollywood’s British Baking at £12.50 (RRP £25). Remember to factor in postage. Amazon provides free delivery on orders over £10, so it makes sense to order cheaper paperbacks in batches of two or three.
If you’re going to shop at Amazon, it’s worth clicking through one of the charity links on the site, such as that for the RNLI (bit.ly/1tVJj6f), as it receives at least 5 per cent of the value of your order. Other sites to check include whsmith.co.uk. You can also buy any UK book in print at the Times book store (timesbooks.co.uk, 0845 271 2134), which offers big discounts on RRPs and free postage. Some of the big high street bookshops offer good deals, such as three-for-two, while many independent shops have character and boast good customer service. Many “remainder” shops, which specialise in books that are no longer selling well, helping to recoup printing and shipping costs, sell top titles at low prices.
Second-hand books
Oxfam Bookshops typically have fantastic deals on used books, from midcentury Penguins in their orange and white jackets to the latest hits, with most titles at a few pounds or even less. The staff are enthusiasts and you’re supporting a great cause. You can buy online at oxfam.org.uk/shop/books.
If you can’t find what you want in local second-hand or antiquarian bookshops, you’ll almost certainly find it at Abebooks.com, a global network of thousands of professional booksellers. You can sort results by price and other filters to find titles such as Graham Greene’s The Quiet American for all pockets, from recent Penguin film tie-in copies at £2.04 (including postage) to a 1955 signed first edition at £9,367.
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Libraries
Membership of your local public library is free. If it doesn’t have a book you want, you can request it as an inter- library loan or suggest that it buys a copy. If you haven’t been in for some time, it’s probably worth revisiting, as some have been revamped. Besides book and e-book loans, membership gives free access to popular subscription websites such as Ancestry.co.uk and the British Newspaper Archive.
Subscription libraries aren’t always cheap but can be terrific value, offering the perks of an exclusive private club. Membership of The London Library in St James’s Square (£475 a year, or £39.58 a month) provides access to more than a million volumes, 750 current journals and periodicals, back-runs of 2,500 titles and a wide range of electronic resources. About 8,000 books are added annually. Members have included Charles Dickens and Winston Churchill and (in fiction) Dr Watson and James Bond. See independent.libraries.co.uk for a directory of subscription libraries.
Find a festival
The Cheltenham Literature Festival from October 3-12, supported by The Times and The Sunday Times, features a great mix of literary events, some of which are free. Visitors have the chance to meet Times writers. For example, Caitlin Moran will talk about her new book, How to Build a Girl, and our foreign correspondent Anthony Loyd and photographer Jack Hill will recall their kidnapping and escape this year in Syria. Other speakers will include Ian McEwan and Hilary Mantel. Subscribers can join us in our Members Lounge for exclusive screenings, events and offers.