Piper Nuelle

You may think it simple right, that to buy a book you must at least travel to a bookstore and purchase a good read or two from them, a true bricks and mortar, bookstore! But… There are other places in the world that sell books that you might not know about or realise sell books, and one of those places that I’m going to tell you about today is… T K MAXX!!! Or T J MAXX if you live across the pond.

Don’t laugh, the image above is an AI image of ‘T K MAXX’, because I was too embarrassed to stand outside the store and take a photo of the actual shop itself (I didn’t want to look like some crazy lady) Inside it wasn’t so bad to sneak a photo or two of the books because it was just me at the time looking at them, but outside was a huge car park filled with shoppers… So yeah, I decided to cheat and use an AI image.

But… I digress back to my initial thought process of… One of my favourite places to buy books! Now, usually T K MAXX is seen as a fashion outlet, a designer brand store that sells things cheaper than the original designer stores… And you would be right in thinking that, but actually they sell so much more than just clothes and fashion;

• Candles
• Cook Ware
• Home Ware
• Suitcases
• Travel Items
• Snacks
• Toys
• Garden items
• Makeup
• Handbags
• Purses
• Sunglasses
• Phone cases
• Perfumes
• Notebooks
• Hair Tools
• And Books…

I really enjoy going to T K MAXX and looking at their book section because you can find some real unique and rare books. Some of course are the normal, everyday type of book you can find in the supermarket, The Works, WHS, Waterstones etc… But the books I like to rummage for are the special editions, the rare books, the ones with special covers, the ones of the great authors of eras gone by such as the Bronte’s, Charles Dickens, Mary Shelley, Jane Austen… But also some of new authors I have never heard of before but soon become firm favourites in my collection. But what I also like about the books there… Is you pay a fraction of the price for them.

The trick I have found to finding awesome books in T K MAXX is to go either early morning or late afternoon when the store is quiet. The early mornings are usually when the store has been restocked with fresh items from delivery but it would also still be quite tidy from the evenings staff having tidied the shop up the night before, which can make looking for things a tad easier because it’s all tidy, in order and less hectic. On the other hand, the late afternoon is nice and quiet, everyone has been and gone and ransacked the place but… People hide things… I have found in my local store that if there is something special that someone wants but maybe can’t get yet, they will try and hide it so no one else finds it. But for me I feel at the end of the day that those items become fair pickings, if they haven’t returned to collect their find by the end of the day then it’s only going to be tidied by staff and potentially found by some other customer the next day when the store opens. So, I tend to have a rummage and a nosey and look to see what people have hid within the book realm but also see what books stand out after being looked through by others. Sometimes when it’s tidy I might not see certain books because they all blend together when tidy, but when messy they stick out like a sore thumb… One such book was…

Dracula by Bram Stoker… A legendary classic in itself but… Just look at this edition!!! The cover design has been embossed so certain spiral like patterns are textured, the title is raised… But what really got me was the colour, the pretty vibrant purple hues that shine almost neon and metallic in the light. The book is also hard cover and feels solid and immaculate.

The original price for this book according to the sticker was £29.99 and yet I paid £7.99!!! Whilst you may find the book elsewhere online and other places might not sell it for the full near on £30 price tag, the RRP (Recommended Retail Price) being that much and me getting it for that cheap, just makes me feel like I got an amazing deal and bargain. I love, love, love collecting the old classics because they were the masters and mistresses of writing and have paved the way for generations that have come after them. So finding this, was a book love affair made in heaven and I cannot wait to sink my teeth into it… Literally lol…

I hope you enjoyed my blog post today and I hope this helps you if you are on the hunt for more book bargains like me. What places do you look for books? Are their secret stores you know about that maybe other book lovers like me need to know about? Let us know…

Xo Piper Xo