Yes. I agree. The grocery store had, Creative Computing, COMPUTE, BYTE, and many other magazines that featured articles on the various systems, assembly language programs, BASIC programs and memory addresses and chips.
That stuff was a big help. Interpreting other material, such as CPU datasheets became possible.
I got my first disassembler, for example, out of COMPUTE magazine as a BASIC language type in listing!
The Apple 2 contained a mini assembler, and the two got several of us writing our own stuff.
And there are multiple parts to this. Our peers and maybe mentors can really matter.
It always seemed unfair to teenage me that the C$ price was 20-40% more than the USD price.
Otherwise, same. Or Powells tech books! That store was amazing! Technical books of all kinds and on any topic for the reading or buying. I did a lot of reading in that store.