A love for second-hand books

I love books; I always have. I have faint memories of browsing my local Waterstones as a kid; that’s where I got The Hobbit, a book that would forever cement my obsession with Tolkien and the fantasy genre and a book I will revisit fondly to recapture the lost magic of my youth.

I still love browsing books shops, and occasionally I’ll pick up a brand new book on a whim, but as I’ve gotten older, I think I actually prefer second-hand books. There's just something so charming about them. They have a history; one or maybe a dozen different hands have held the book you now hold. Different minds have pondered the same words you now read.

When you read a second-hand book, you now and forever have an intangible connection to the strangers that came before you. Think of that link as a cosmic library that spans time and place. You are the current steward of a book that has delighted or frustrated any number of readers before you and will continue to do so until it breaks apart at the spine.

Besides the romantic musings of cosmic connections to previous readers, used books also have a rather logical reason for being loved. They are cheaper to buy, and it’s also rather eco to have a book serve many different readers over the years.

What do you think of used books? Let me know in the comments section.

Easy Eco: 5 Tips to become more eco

Among everything going on in the world right now, we can’t forget that there is a climate crisis. So I’m going to propose a few ways in which you can become more eco easily. In fact, you probably won’t realise that you're doing it!

Disclaimer: Nobody is perfect, it’s really f-ing hard to be eco-friendly in all aspects of your life, these are some simple things I have been doing/have started implementing that I think are easy ways to be a little more eco in your everyday life. If everyone makes a little change that will lead to a massive change.

Get ready to unleash your inner Greta Thunberg…

Buy Second Hand

Fashion - Thrift shops are cool, fashion comes in cycles anyway so get your 70’s florals or your 90’s slip at a fraction of the price, in better quality and while saving the planet. It’s a win-win scenario.

Classic Books - Dead authors don’t need your patronage, so buy your Dickens, your Flaubert, your Tolstoy second hand, all those dead guys don’t need your money anymore. Save your cash and save the trees. If you really want to spend absolutely nothing as you don’t mind reading on a screen then download them for free onto the kindle app or from Gutenberg! Also, a recent discovery is Better World Books, they are cheap, offer carbon-neutral shipping and also donate 1 book for every book you buy to a good cause!!

Furniture - The same reasoning as fashion, old school furniture is generally better quality because it’s still in existence after all these years. It’s also more eclectic than your Ikea flat-pack stuff.

Now that is one big pile of…

Buy a Vacuum Flask

If you love coffee, and often get it on the go, just get a flask rather than those godforsaken takeaway cups! If you’re feeling even more spendthrift with a dash of Marxism thrown in for good measure, brew your own coffee at home or find an indie coffee shop instead of handing your hard-earned cash over to massive corporations!

I have the Kinto Day Off Tumbler, and while it’s not exactly cheap for a vacuum flask it will make back its price very very quickly and each time I use it I can feel proud that there is one less takeaway cup ending up in landfill! And its rather sexy I must say, as travel mugs go…

4 Minute Shower

Be a little more speedy, that’s all you need to change. Sure it’s lovely to close your eyes and bask in the tropical waterfall that your shower becomes, but there are people out in the world that don’t have access to water! Don’t waste so much of it! People in Africa, Asia and South America have to walk miles to get a small amount of often dirty water, their communities and countries are already suffering from global warming, so pay them some thought and think about what the future holds for them if you keep taking your everyday luxuries for granted. Also. with the money, you save on your water bill maybe you could turn that into a donation for a water charity!

Don’t Waste Food

So much food is wasted every single day. Don’t buy more than you need, if you think you might not be able to eat something before it goes off, freeze it if possible. If a recipe just needs egg whites, save your yolks in the fridge for something else tomorrow. Batch cook, so you can use up stuff and feed yourself for a few days rather than giving yourself a massive portion that you end up putting half of into the bin. Just be smarter about waste, it’s that easy!

Don’t Leave the Lights On!

Each year the WWF hold Earth Hour where for just one hour everyone turns their lights off from 8:30 to 9:30. Imagine if we could do this just once a week. How about having a weekly movie night where you gather your household around the tv and watch a film in the dark, or maybe crack out some candles (even better if they are homemade) and have a candlelit hour or two reading or a candlelit bath as part of a pampering evening. Make your Eco event a healing event for you too, then you’ll come to see them as coinciding in the same space, to save the world you can save your well-being too.

There’s a French phrase that I love ‘on est pas à Versailles ici!’ which translates to ‘we’re not in Versailles!’ so check yourself, don’t leave all your lights on, you’re not in Versailles, you're at home, save some energy for your bank balance and for the well-being of the world!

oh here’s one extra for good measure

Buy some Reusable Produce bags

You know those plastic bags they have in dispensers in supermarkets to put your fresh fruit and veggies into, well think about how many of those must be used every day. It’s probably quite alarming, and yes they keep your fruit and veg separate and safe but you could opt for an eco version like these ones from The Plastic Free Shop.

There we go, 6 Easy Eco Steps that we can incorporate into our lives without any real difficulty. Do you have any eco tips and tricks to share, pop them down below in the comments section and let’s get saving the planet!