So...going the free route didn't get you the books you need to start your private library.... who you gonna call?!
The place to begin is your local independent bookseller. Most of these nice folks usually make available a wide range of books for little or no money as a "loss leader" to draw people into their shops. For example: "paperbacks for 25 cents," " hardbacks for 50 cents," sometimes even less if you bring a book or two to swap.
Of course, the advent of megastores like Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble, etc., have wiped out independent booksellers nationwide, so if you don't have access to one, fear not: most of the major deep discount bookstores are online. These are primarily remainder houses (use the glossaries in the left column if you don't understand any of the terms we use in these posts).
When publishers publish too many copies of a particular book, the unsold copies often are returned to the publisher for credit. The publisher then turns around and sells this excess inventory to a remainder house for a very modest profit per copy, and the remainder house in turn sells this excess inventory to the general public, almost for a very modest profit. Such books often are marked in some way (a dot or line across the bottom edge of the text block, for example), so this is not a route to pursue if you want only pristine editions in your library.
Some major remainder houses that you will want to explore are Hamilton Books and Daedalus Books, both of which have a wide range of titles on offer, as well as Labyrinth Books and Oxbow Books if your preference is for more academic titles.
These types of deep discount booksellers often will save you 80%-90% off the original retail price of books in which you're interested....
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