<p>I'm taking Chinese 1, Economics 51D, Mathematics 103, and Writing 20 from Katz. It seems the Duke store offers all the required textbooks at $339, while Amazon does at $187. Is a purchase from Amazon OK? I mean, is there any "Duke-special" textbooks that I can't buy from Amazon? Do they arrive in time for the school from Amazon?</p>
<p>I pretty much only buy my books from Amazon. It's okay-- especially if you searched by ISBN number. They'll arrive before classes begin.</p>
<p>same, i buy almost exclusively from amazon</p>
<p>Should I start buying books online now so that they arrive in time for school?</p>
<p>Yeah, get them delivered to Duke and make sure the estimated shipping date is before the start of classes.</p>
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I mean, is there any "Duke-special" textbooks that I can't buy from Amazon?
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<p>There sometimes are, but you'll be able to tell because they of course won't show up on an Amazon search.</p>
<p>Let's say that I order my books through amazon but they don't show up in time for the start of classes. What do I do in the meantime? Buy the books through duke, and return them when my online ones return? Can you check out textbooks from the library? Any other options?</p>
<p>Just share with a friend. To be honest, college is different from high school in the sense that for most (not all, but most) classes, you don't have homework due every class - you just have to keep up with the reading and do well on the midterms/final. For classes like Calc (and maybe Chem? but I dunno, I've never taken a lab science at Duke), you'll need to do problems in the textbook...but you can just share a book with a friend and get the problems you need. I know people who went the whole semester without shelling out for a book just by borrowing a friend's to copy down the problems they needed. Don't worry about it - the books will get there soon enough, and sharing for a couple of weeks isn't that bad at all.</p>
<p>Honestly--unless you have a lot of books for one class, you may not do too much work in the first class or two, and with Amazon, assuming you order now, that's more than enough time for it to arrive. (seriously, I don't think I click special shipping options, and if I order on a Monday, I've received the package by that Thursday or Friday usually) If it's an English class or something that you need a novel, then yeah, you might need to either buy the first book from the Duke bookstore or borrow it from the library for the first few days. In my experience, I've seen a lot of professors use e-printed manuscripts the first class periods to account for books still en route to the students.</p>