The Book Search

The search for specific books.
Since I got a new job, my life's been preoccupied. However, while on the job, there are times when we are not busy. Those times, I'm not doing anything. I don't seem to possess the attention span to use my phone and read manga or play some silly games and whatnot, so that's out of the question. I can't put earphones on for music because it's rude to do so in my situation and I can't even hear people when I do. So what's the solution? (Skip to the bottom for a "TL;DR" version).

Go back to reading the books I enjoyed.

Specifically,

1. "Book Girl" light novel series. Alternative name: "Literature Girl," "Literary Girl." Japanese name: "Bungaku Shoujo." Author: Mizuki Nomura.
• For the record, this light novel series does have an Anime. It's a movie and a couple OVA(s). Its animation wasn't that great, style-wise, but it was beautiful. Chins used up too much of the face, but I digress.
2. "No Longer Human" novel. Author: Osamu Dazai.

Some of the many characters in the Book Girl series. Image based off Anime adaptation.

Book Girl, printing completed in Japanese, is currently an ongoing series of books in English.

• Book Girl and the Suicidal Mime (owned)
• Book Girl and the Famished Spirit
• Book Girl and the Captive Angel (owned)
• Book Girl and the Corrupted Angel (owned)
• Book Girl and the Wayfarer's Lamentation (owned)
• The rest are to-be-released.

Now, there's "No Longer Human" by Osamu Dazai. The characters in Book Girl made references to this book, so I had become interested, but never put forth the effort to find out more about it until now.

For the Book Girl series (which I'll have you know is not an old series, so there is no reason for it to be no longer published, since it's actually an ongoing series of books), specifically, I was mad because on almost all websites that even have "--the Famished Spirit," priced it at like $79.99 or more. Hell, the used version on Amazon costs anywhere between $199 up to $999. The hell is wrong with people? Rather, what's up with the second volume? The others are all less than $10 each!

What stores have I checked?

• 1x Books-a-Million - Told me to check back in the evening so they could unpack all their boxes of new shipments. Good customer service. Ended up not having the books, though.
• 2x Barnes and Noble - Will no even have the ebook available until December, and will not have the hard cover available. Good customer service. Seems to be inferior to Books-a-Million selection-wise, though.
• 1x Politics and Prose - Immediate no.
• 1x Secondary Story Books - No.
• 2x Busboys and Poets - Offered to check with the wholesaler. Good customer service. Bad selection.
• 1x Kramerbooks and the Afterwords Cafe - Offered to order all the books I needed. Good customer service.

Eight locations. I don't even need all the books at once. At least, either the Famished Spirit or No Longer Human only would have been fucking great. Apparently that's too much to ask! I hated everything! That was when I was looking for it. 

I ended up placing the order for all the books on Amazon.com excluding "--the Famished Spirit," which I placed an order for from Books-a-Million. Amazon's Super Saver Shipping is always great financially and decent efficiency. Books-a-Million's insane with their 2-4 weeks shipping, which is a terrible way of getting people to become members for $20.

This is about how I felt at this point.

Now what?
I've called all those stores, and even emailed plenty of online stores. Those above listed, Walmart, Ebay, Amazon, Eruditor, Deep Discount, and several more smaller places. No place carries this January, 2011 book or knows when they can possibly get it. I decided to email the publisher themselves, Yen Press, and waited days for a reply. Nothing.
Around the same time, I decided to go for libraries. But instead of wasting my time with small libraries, I went straight to inquiring the Library of Congress. This place has almost every book one could possibly need or want. They have --the Famished Spirit listed, but they actually do not possess a hard copy.

I was on the verge of spending $85 total for this book on Amazon after about a week's worth of frustration. Before finalizing my decision, I emailed Cereus Books (the seller on Amazon) requesting it be lowered. S/he kindly let me know about the book's current status on the market: it's out of print. Sadly, it cannot be lowered, as his/her price is already much lower than the next. I thank you, Cereus Books, but I came to a conclusion.

My conclusion? I'm going to purchase a Kindle Paperwhite. For $119 (free S+H) and a selection of thousands of free books (or so I heard), I figured, "it'll be like $50 more than for a hard copy of that one book, but it's worth it in the long run." With all the features and pros and whatnot, it's the smarter choice. It's available late October from Amazon again, but the book I want (--the Famished Spirit) isn't available for the Kindle until December. So, I'll wait until then.

TL;DR - I checked what many would consider virtually everywhere via internet, phone, email, etc. No place had it, and only Amazon and a few sketchy websites had it for like $500+. I emailed Cereus Books, the only sane seller on Amazon, requesting that the price be lowered and learned of the book's situation: it's out of print. Decided to wait until December for the Kindle version to become available, then buy a Kindle and the book on there.

Main character of Book Girl, Tohko Amano. This is a piece of fanart, not official. Not mine, of course.

For those who read everything, I thank you. Cereus Books, thank you for the information. Everyone else trying to figure out this book's status as well, you're welcome. But I doubt that many are. I believe it was Eruditor that counted 39 others who currently are on hold for this book? Hope you guys see this and give up as well. Get a Kindle.

1/11/13 EDIT: Seems this book became available on Amazon for a couple days, then either sold out or they realized it wasn't in stock until 1-3 months from now. I haven't been reading much, but I'll definitely start again if this book comes into my possession.

5/5/13 EDIT: Seems this book is in fact officially restocked on Amazon. Dunno how long, but I caught it in time to order it. Will be here soon. I will post the image of my ownership upon its arrival!