I, Your Friendly Neighborhood Mighty Bargain Hunter (FNMBH) am a voracious reader of books and newsletters that help him to make money and spend less the easy way. But you probably guessed that. (And, by the way, I'm a dirt-slow reader.) ;)

And, like everything else, I want access to the books on the cheap. The cheaper, the better. And, like with everything else, there's no one best place to buy bargain books. Sometimes a retail book store is the best place!

Here are some tips for bagging bargain books:

• For books hot off the press read for pleasure, ask yourself: Do you need to own it? Since the book is probably too new to be in the public library, you can go to the retail libraries (a.k.a. bookstores) and read it there. If you absolutely must own it, grab it on sale, or go to addall.com to compare for your best price.
• But before you run out of the bookstore to your computer, check the bargain bins if they have them. I always check our local Books-A-Million's bargain bins for computer books.
• For books hot off the press for reference, you'll probably need to own it, so first check your Borders or Barnes and Noble for price then go to addall.com to compare. Check also to see if the site with the best price has a click-through discount that you can grab through butterflymall.com or ebates.com. A new computer book was 30% off at Borders, but slightly cheaper at Walmart.com with a butterflymall.com clickthrough.
• For books a little older: Say you've recently grown to love Tom Clancy and want all of his books, and used will do. You can check on ebay.com for someone unloading a bunch of Tom Clancys. You can check out a used book store, rummage sale, thrift store, or library book sale to get 90% off list or more. By the way, a paperback is a good "throw-in" negotiating item at rummage sales. My wife Vanessa makes the library book sale even nicer by volunteering to organize the books for the sale, because this gives her first crack at a few of her favorites. At used book stores, you can often trade in your books for store credit, which makes your purchases cheaper.
• For really old/rare/out of print books, you can try to run across them at rummage sales. "Antique" shops, ebay, or used book stores usually will have a realistic price on them (i.e., expensive if they're hard to find) but you may catch them unawares and get them for a song. If you're able to be patient, you'll be able to catch a better price. Also, addall.com has links for hard-to-find booksellers as well.