Last year I became enthralled with Alexander McCall Smith's The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency series on HBO. I absolutely loved Jill Scott in the lead role of Mma Ramotswe and I adored Mr. Smith's simple but refreshing storylines. So naturally, I was curious to find out more about the author only to discover an entire series of books that I was unaware of. Knowing that most film adaptations of books are pretty weak in comparison, I decided to give the first book in the series a try. OMG, I became hooked and started stalking bookstores for copies of the next installment. The only problem for me was that each book cost nearly $20 a piece and on my scaled down budget, I couldn't buy the books as quickly as I would have liked. That's when a friend mentioned a site called PaperBackSwap.com. Basically, you list your unused and unwanted books (including hardbacks and audio books) and other people request what they want from the list. You pay for postage but in turn you can request books of your choice and they are sent to you at no charge.
I immediately set about getting more No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency books. Within a month or so, I got all 8 of the remaining books to get the full collection. At no cost to me. I estimate that I saved about $160 not including gas to drive to various bookstores. I also picked up some cookbooks, trashy romance novels and an exercise book. Swwwwweeett!
When I'm not working, I try to carve out a couple of hours to read these delightful, intriguing and funny books with a glass of cheap (but still tasty wine). I figure if I don't have the cash to spend money on a big vacation with my husband or trip to the spa, a glass of wine (or two) and good book is the next best thing to take my mind off of bills, deadlines and my noisy neighbor with his obnoxiously big, loud truck parked in front of the footpath leading to our front door.
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