Bargain shopping

I am a reader.  I love reading science fiction, certain historical novels, gardening books, cookbooks.

You ever check out those cookbooks that are also travelogues like those by Naomi Duguid and or Jeffery Alford? 
You know, the ones where they talk about going round the country, where they stayed, and the great foods they found in the little hole in the wall place?  The one they stumbled across in their wanderings around the city?

I love  reading those types in addition to regular cookbooks.  The thing is,  I am a vegetarian who leans towards being vegan but I still buy many of the meat based cookbooks because the recipes sound sooooo good and many of them have some great recipes that can easily be changed, so I can eat it. I made one that required ground meat and I substituted TVP and it was awesome.

Mostly I go after Asian, Vegan, or Latino cook books.

by Christopher Porter

You ask where this is all going?

 I finally discovered e-books.  It took me quite a while to switch over to e-books because they don't have the same smell or texture that regular books have but I can now travel with 150 books and no real added weight.  It also means I do not need more book shelves!

I just keep getting a bit off track.  Anyway, I prowl the two big sources for sales.

Who can resist a sale.  I love looking for bargains.  I just stumbled across one of the happy herbivore cookbooks (vegan) for $1.99.  In addition, I found a wonderful book on Burmese cooking marked down.  It is not vegan but it has some really delicious looking recipes.

The other area I love is gardening. With the long winter and tons of snow.  Alaska really is a state where the ground is white and the sky is green.  I love gardening books so I can see green in the middle of the winter.  When spring fever hits, I pull out my gardening books.

Unfortunately, gardening has lots of imitators who throw together a 20 to 32 page book on one of the popular topics such as square foot gardening, slap a $2.99 sticker on it and sell it as an ultimate guide.   Come on folks, 32 pages for the ultimate guide to whatever?  Dream on.

 On the other hand, I was able to purchase the original Square Foot Gardening  by Mel Bartholomew for like $3.99 on sale.  The one that birthed this trend.   Just saw one on vertical gardening and one on vegetable gardening, both are considered excellent resources and are full length books but are on sale for $2.99.

I always feel like I scored something awesome when I stumble across the bargains.  Can't do it in person since there are no stores larger than the 7-11 type corner stores and all I really have is the internet to fulfill my desires for bargain hunting.