I was saddened to receive an e-mail from Border Books the other day saying that all of their stores would be closing. They had closed about 50% of the stores in my area last year, but there was one new store that had opened as a replacement. I knew that the company was in trouble, but never imagined that all of their stores would soon be gone.
I’m embarrassed to say that I immediately thought about all of the bargains I could get at their going out of business sale. I looked at it as an opportunity to pick-up some knitting books that have been on my wish list. Today I went to my local Borders store to look at the knitting book selection. I was pleased that they had many of the books that I have been looking at online. I first looked at the Knitwear Design Workshop: A Comprehensive Guide to Handknits
.
It is a fabulous book that I think is a great resource for anyone who is interested in designing sweaters. My only disappointment was that the book was only 10% off. I was hoping for saving closer to 40% or 50% off. At $40, I somehow thought that I could do better purchasing this book online. In the end I decided to hold off to see if the book would be available in a few weeks when the discounts increase. When I got home I immediately went to Amazon to see their price. I was thrilled to see that it is only $26.40 and includes free shipping.
Another knitting book that I looked at is Mastering Color Knitting: Simple Instructions for Stranded, Intarsia, and Double Knitting
. I love the detail that this book provides on everything color related. If you've been thinking about learning more about intarsia, stranded or double knitting, then this book is a great place to start. And here again, I found the Amazon price was much better than the discounted sales price at Borders. Their price is $20 ($22 minus 10%) and Amazon's price is $15.63, with free shipping if you spend at least $25.
If you have some knitting books on your wish list, you may want to check out Borders bookstore to see if they have it in stock. Just beware that all sales are final, so buy with caution and make sure it’s a book that you really want. I also always recommend checking online to see what the current prices are. As I've outlined above with these two books, Amazon still tends to have better deals than Borders. So my strategy is to use Borders to look at the books in person so that I can browse the chapters to see if these books will fit my needs. After all, there's nothing worse than spending a lot of money on a book and then realizing that their are only a few pages of information that really appeal to you. I'm sure that my strategy of browsing at a Borders store and then purchasing online is fairly common. After all, it's probably why they are going out of business in the first place. They just weren't able to compete with the low costs of online stores like Amazon.
See more on My Knitting Nook:
- [intlink id=”45″ type=”post”]Knitting Magazines: A Look at the Summer Editions[/intlink][intlink id=”7″ type=”post”]Vogue knitting book Review[/intlink]
- [intlink id=”7″ type=”post”]Vogue Knitting Book Review[/intlink]
- [intlink id=”1″ type=”post”]Knitting on The Edge Book Review[/intlink]