<p>these sites dont work
<a href="http://booklist.cbs.cornell.edu/rbo/...istLookupS.asp%5B/url%5D">http://booklist.cbs.cornell.edu/rbo/...istLookupS.asp</a></p>
<p>the cornell store also sells used textbooks. how do these prices compare with amazon?</p>
<p>Can you email your professors and ask them if them if they have selected the books yet? Do they get annoyed by this, or are they willing to help if you want to circumvent the bookstore?</p>
<p>here is info previously posted on bbok buying -</p>
<p>I don't understand the rush. The Cornell Store will upload semi-finalized booklists around 1 week before school begins. That's plenty of time for you to get your books. If they come a week into the semester, it's not a big deal. I typically buy all of the larger ($50+) textbooks on half.com or amazon and the smaller ones at the bookstore.</p>
<p>Yeah, you sometimes don't know which edition the professor will use, or whether it's a specially abridged version just for cornell (they have these for larger lectures), or if the professor is actually going to use the book... i'd wait until class starts, no professor actually requires you to have the book until a few weeks in, and even if they do, the books are all on reserve</p>
<p>Edit: reserve in the library, that is. I know people who have gotten away with not buying any of their FWS books</p>
<p>another thing unique about college is COURSE PACKETS meaning that professors research different articles/books and instead of making you buy each book they just cut out the articles and make a COURSE PACKET (which is a collection of these articles bounded by the cornell store) which is sold at the cornell store in varying prices, sometimes these cost more than real books!</p>
<p>and sometimes the clueless profs don't realize that the articles he/she was assigning cost tons more than a book - happened to son and when prof found out he had a fit</p>
<p>Yep... has happened in my case. For a biochem course we had a $15 course packet with three articles in it, total of maybe 20 pages... although you technically (legally) can't do this, it might be helpful to split the packet with a friend or two in the course and make photocopies.</p>
<p>Also, some more experience as to why you shouldn't buy books before classes start - some books simply aren't used as much as others.</p>
<p>For example, in some FWS and many arts/ILR/humanities classes, you have several smaller (maybe 5-6, sometimes as many as ten) books to buy. While each paperback book might be in the 20 dollar range new, maybe 30% cheaper used, these books will often add up to more than the big, expensive, hardbound textbooks used for some of the large lecture classes. When it comes time to sell back these textbooks, you'll often find that you'll only get a few bucks back on each of these, or they won't be accepted for buyback at all! These shorter books will often be assigned reading material for one week, be used to write an essay or two, and that will be the end of it. So my suggestion would be try and see if the books are on library reserve, or to split the cost with a friend... because you probably will read the books once, in one night and never again. If you find you NEED the textbook, you can usually track the it down in the library, borrow it, or if its really essential, amazon next-day shipping charges aren't bad at all.</p>
<p>In the same sense, the large textbooks sometimes essential, sometimes useless. I found that in some courses you'll be using it a lot, and in other courses you won't need to open the $150 textbook to do well, as the professor teaches mainly from a course pack or from lecture notes. (e.g. Psych 101, AEM 210)</p>