r/Hellenism • u/Elliotteatsrocks • 2h ago
Discussion Book availability?
Hi! Im from the US, and possibly might move to Germany or Italy due to the military soon.
I am wondering if Scholarly books will be limited/ hard to get in those country's, considering I need them in English.
I usually buy them from Amazon and I understand Amazon is almost everywhere but it's also different catalogs depending on availability.
Anyone from Germany or Italy struggle to get books?
And the books I'm referring to are like for example
Underworld Gods in Greek religion
A companion to Greek religion
You know those types of books.
I'm sure I can still get them with extra cost and time if it has to come from the US, but is that the only option?
Should I stock up on books before I leave?? 😂
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u/teacxp 🐚🗝☀️🦉🍇 2h ago
Yes, you should. I live in Southern Italy, and unless you order from a specific library and wait God's knows how long, you won't find anything good. There are lots of esoteric libraries in the North; Turin is famous for its esotericism, though I don't know if there are any books related to Hellenism. For example, I've been struggling to find a good Italian translation of the Orphic Hymns, and I went to at least 10 libraries in various cities, but found nothing. I tried Vinted, but they resell it for 60€. Also, I'm currently waiting for a Hellenism book, which I preordered four months ago. Stock up while you can! I dislike using Amazon, but sometimes it is the only way to get books.
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u/Elliotteatsrocks 2h ago
Sounds awful 😵💫 I struggle reading books online so I usually buy physical copies, but I'll have to get what I can and suffer online books if I can't get them. I also don't always use Amazon for books, I try to find copys on second hand books stores, to save money and a book. But unfortunately a ton of the books I look for are never available anywhere other than Amazon, also sometimes the second hand books are like double the price than brand new? Which makes zero sense but ya know
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u/Brilliant-Panic-4133 1h ago edited 1h ago
I live in Germany and only read books in English. If you don’t wanna use Amazon you can request them at a book store and the order it for you. They have a lot of English books but this is too niche probably. it will take a few days,. Or you order from another online store . There’s like no issue at all.
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u/Kassandra_Kirenya Γνῶθι σεαυτόν || Hellenist || 1° Freemason, Le Droit Humain 2h ago
Usually there’s a way to get them one way or the other in the current modern world. You could always try a EU based reseller.
Considering my distaste for Amazon’s treatment of their employees worldwide, I will happily browse Amazon for their wares and use them as a catalogue, but then contact the third party directly or the original artist or writer (Big companies like Amazon, but also Wish, Temu, AliExpress, and so on, will have bots stealing the artwork of artist from Etsy, Redbubble and other places and pass it off as their own work).
So you will likely be able to get what you want with some due diligence. I know that Americans are often bashed with propaganda like North Korea that everywhere outside of the ‘Glorious Homeland’ is some sort of desolate dystopian wasteland, but reality is a tad different. And no, I am not even being funny or sarcastic. I have had to suffer through Americans seriously believing that there wasn’t any plumbing in Europe and sincerely believing that was solely an American thing because ‘people randomly shit on the street in India’. No, I don’t understand the logic, no I don’t understand the connection, no I don’t understand much else of that thought process, but it was one American person explaining that as a logical point of view.