Books

I once paid $60 ish for a book

Why are so few people actually answering the question?

I’d pay $20…anything above that and I’m not sure it’s worth it when there are kindle or library options available.

I refuse to pay more than $20 for a book unless it’s the first edition of a new release from my favorite author

I only buy hardcovers so my average spend is a little more, but this also serves to limit my spending since I definitely won't go on ebay and buy like a $100 copy of an out of print hardcover. So while it may be more expensive on average it also gives me a reason to not just go crazy and buy every single book I want to read.

I really like the Pango app so I can buy used books and sell my used books I didn't like as much

It really depends on what it is. If it's something I love, it depends on what I can afford. I paid $500 for a first edition of The Hitchhiker's Guide with the Capricorn 1 ad on the back. And I paid quite a bit for an American first edition copy of The Hobbit that I used in place of a ring to propose to my now wife. But most of my books are pretty cheap.

I did manage to find a first print/edition copy of The Shining for $1 at a library sale years ago...that was a cool find.

I get hardcovers of series I really like, otherwise it's usually paperback.

But I did spend AU$120 to get the last book in a trilogy that had been eluding me. The first two books I got for like $20. Couldn't find the third anywhere for years. The only option was this omnibus edition with all 3 books, at Au$120 on Amazon.

Glad I got it, I can still see it on Amazon but now for around $300. It's not a well known trilogy, the Deepwater trilogy by NZ author Ken Catran. I read those books so much as a kid that I just had to read them all again as an adult.

Depends on the book and also where I’m buying it from. If I’m going to my local bookstore, I’m more willing to spend money because it means supporting a small business

I have spent $400 on a book, but that’s a very specific case.

I spent $53 on a paperback once, 460 pages. I think it was worth it though. it's an academic work with quite a few large pictures spread throughout, so it'd be hard to process on a Kindle.

I also spent $30 on a hardcover of Basic Economics, which is honestly a steal for the 600 pages that you get.

I guess it depends on how much content you get. I don't care much for hardcover vs paperback. If anything the latter is lighter and easier to handle.

I've spent $100 on nonfiction physical books on particular subjects (not textbooks). I'm running out of physical space for regular books, so I'm switching to ebooks for most fiction. For them, I don't like to go above $4.99. I did spend $12 on an ebook recently because I had heard a lot about it. It was terrible.

I’m fully aware I’ve overpaid for some fancy special editions with sprayed and stenciled edges.

I just buy whatever is there at the bookstore.. If we're talking about how much I'm willing to spend max, I've spent >$200 for art books and I spent $150 on an art instruction book that used to be a reasonable price but since the artist/author died, the family is price gouging to get more money. I really loved the book (an instructor lent her copy to me) and so I just sighed and bought my own copy.

There's a library close by where i check them out for free.

Right now, maybe $50, but only because I’m renting a room in a house and don’t have space for a bookshelf. But if I had my own place and built an office with a bookshelf, I’d easily pay $200 for a hardcover version of my favorite books.

I only buy physical books. I just like not having a screen. I'll usually stop at $25 per book unless another edition has a better cover art for a few extra dollars or the only edition I can find is hardback.

I got a copy of the Codex Seraphinianus as a gift to myself.

It was pretty expensive, but I love it.

I've gone up to $50 for scarce, out of print books I want to make sure I have lifelong access to.
For small-press-published books I'm unlikely to find secondhand for less than half the publisher's price if at all, up to $20.
For the average book I REALLY want, up to $10 if I've been searching secondhand sales & shops for a couple of years and haven't seen it yet.
For most books though? (including ebooks) It's a hard cut-off at $3. Maybe $5 if it's brand-new.

I accidentally paid 40 for the rise of kyoshi book set when i thought it was 20 and I'm fairly sure that would be my limit on a price. Totally worth the price though.

50 USD is my hard limit for a single book. Obviously, that doesn't include any textbooks. I'm a huge fan of reference books and I absolutely would buy a set of world book encyclopediae if I had the money and the physical space.

I do like hardcover and paperback, but most books I read are digital. I find having too many paper and ink books to be rather inconvenient, but I keep a full bookshelf of volumes that simply would not look good on a screen.

Usually these are the books with graphics or illustrations that are integral to the reader's enjoyment of the work. In my opinion, e-books do not usually favor images over compatibility, so there will be huge images that you can't zoom in on, compressed images that you can't enlarge, and weird placement of images that don't align with the context the text above and below them provide.

For personal enjoyment, the most I've spent was about 50 bucks for an original advance reader's copy of Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five, which I love, but will just read on Kindle or whatever. For college books, just ick, those were nasty expensive 20 years ago, let alone now.

If I had no dependents I'd buy more expensive, I prefer hard covers or books I can rebind. Depending on the series I'd be willing to shell out 60-100 a book. New reads I get now are always from book sales or discount stores. Can't exactly drop 600 bucks on a series and keep up with my kids, wife and our pets

Up to $20 for a physical book if it doubles as a cool souvenir to bring home from an overseas trip (so it's got a nice cover and is sturdy). For ebooks, about $12 if it's a new release by an author I already really like, but preferably single digits, and low single digits if it's a new to me author.

I don't care at all about special editions or signed copies or whatever.

Also, I'm surprised that multiple people in this thread apparently think r/books subscribers have never heard of libraries.

The most I was willing to pay apparently was $325 in 1995 or so for a single textbook. After that, the leather bound edition of The Tales of Beedle the Bard but I can’t remember how much it was. (If anyone remembers I’d like a reminder)

Don't have a limit but I almost never went above 40€ for a single book (except once for a gift)

nothing, long live libraries!

Over $720 for a signed/leatherbound/new in shrink wrap copy of a book I missed buying for $50 on amazon at release. Part of a series of which I got all the other books at release, and just couldn't pass when one finally came up for sale, even at a ludicrous price.

I’m happy with cheap reading copies. I was brought up browsing through second hand stores and I have some reading copies that may well be Victorian, like Thackeray and Dickens.

I do collect certain books and I came across an early copy of Robert Burns that had been signed by a previous owner- who was my 3 great’s grandfather! I paid a couple of hundred pounds for it!

One million.

I’m happy to pay a bit more if the book contains colour illustrations, or has a particularly gorgeous binding. However my maximum for a single book is £35. Unless it’s a textbook that I’m told I have absolutely no choice but to purchase and second hand copies are unavailable.

I'm totally fine with the idea of spending more for a really nice copy, but I prefer reading paperbacks, so my limit usually ends up being $20 if I buy them new.