Oh yeah, and...

[j4]

... the thing I did yesterday lunchtime that I'd never done before -- I bought Book Tokens. I've received lots of Book Tokens in the past, but never actually bought them.

See, I told you it wasn't interesting... but all your suggestions were great. Thank you for entertaining me. :-)

Comments

[acronym.livejournal.com]

But buying book-tokens is cool! You can use them to buy books, see, and we likes books, we do.

(Also, it means you're giving book tokens to someone, and this is a Good and Kind and Generous thing to be doing. I loved the co-workers at the Civil Service who gave me book-tokens when I left after the summer about five years ago. :-) )

- A

[simonb.livejournal.com]

Borders has (or at least they had the last time I looked) a credit-card style thing instead of book tokens which you can charge up with credit, the idea being that you can get a standard card, add an amount of money to it and then give that to someone. The nice thing about it is that the person can then add more money to the card later - one possible use is to occasionally put money into the card, effectively saving up to buy books.

This does mean dealing with Borders tho.

[j4.livejournal.com]

Borders has (or at least they had the last time I looked) a credit-card style thing

They still do, yes -- but of course book tokens can be used in any book shop, whereas Borders cards can only be used in Borders ... which is not much use if the person you're sending the vouchers to doesn't have a Borders in their town/city.

And not only do you have to deal with Borders (I do shop there very occasionally) but if it's a gift then you're effectively making somebody else deal with Borders, and I don't really like telling people which shops to use.

effectively saving up to buy books

Yeah -- saving up to buy books from the most expensive bookseller in town...

[bopeepsheep.livejournal.com]

saving up to buy books from the most expensive bookseller in town...

But one that doesn't say 'eh? what?' when you want a US-published book (well, a popular published-there-but-not-here one, anyway). And their range of non-UK magazines is pretty good. I think here, at least, they do better on range than the local competitors do. I don't generally buy 'chart' titles from them, though.

[j4.livejournal.com]

one that doesn't say 'eh? what?' when you want a US-published book

I've never had that reaction from Waterstones -- they look things up, & if they can get them they will. To be honest, though, I'd probably buy online if I wanted US-published books.

magazines

Fair point.

I think here, at least, they do better on range than the local competitors do.

Even better than Blackwells? To be fair, Borders' range in all areas is pretty good, it's their prices that make me reluctant to shop there. OTOH the listening-posts in the music section are great -- you can listen to see if you like something, & then go and order it for about half the price online. 8-)

[hoiho.livejournal.com]

The listening posts are good, but almost every time I've wanted to listen to something recently, it's not been in the database.

[angua.livejournal.com]

Blame Cambridge, when I worked there (for a whole three weeks) it was that branch which ripped the CDs as they came in and that was then spread around to all other Borders stores.