<p>I bought my books on half.com a few weeks ago and THEYRE NOT HERE YET...i move tomorrow!</p>
<p>alison, u must have chose media mail, not expedited. Media Mail is very very very slooooooooooow. :(</p>
<p>My school's bookstore website through Efollet doens't have the ISBN numbers. Now, I can find the books based on title, author, and even edition...but you know, even though I'm 97% sure I've got the absolute right book, there's that 3% telling me that I should just wait until I get back on campus and look at the ISBN number just to be 100% sure.</p>
<p>Don't worry about stolen books on Amazon. I'm not saying it doesn't happen, but book publishers always give professors free books in hopes that professors will assign their books to their class. If a professor does choose that book, the publishers usually send him several free ones so he and his TAs can have copies. There are people who make it their business to buy the free books the professors don't use. They usually buy the books cheaply since the professors get them for free in the first place. Then they can turn around and sell them online for way under the cost of new books. My mentor currently has two stacks of these free books leaning against his wall, each about three feet high, waiting for the next person to come along and buy them, and these are only the books he received this summer. Just about every day he gets a new book from a publisher. Some of these books say "sample edition" (or similar) on the cover, some don't, but don't worry, they're the same books that everyone else has. </p>
<p>Out of principle, I try to buy my books from anywhere except the bookstore. The markups in the bookstore are outrageous. It's hard to get an idea of how bad it is when you're buying textbooks, but if you take lit classes or anything where you use regular books, you see it. I was at my college bookstore once and saw a paperback where all the printed prices had been punched out with a hole punch. It was $34. I went six blocks to Borders and found the same book for $14.75, full price. <em>growl</em> A lot of schools don't make it easy to find out what books you need ahead of time; at mine, while you can reserve your textbooks online during the summer, you have to actually physically go to the bookstore to get the names and editions of the bokos you need. This works for me since I live nearby, but obviously a lot of people can't do this. A lot of bookstores actually do have part of the ISBN number on the tag next to the books... finding out which part is the tricky thing. My school has the first four out of the last five numbers. That means, if the ISBN number was 0123456789, the number on the tag would be 5678. Once you figure out your school's code, however, it makes it pretty easy to match up the fragment of the ISBN number you have to what you're buying online or wherever. Watch out for all the low-price bookstores that tend to spring up around campuses. They usually sell older editions, and most professors are conscientious enough not to assign a new book unless there is a good reason, meaning they're going to use the new material in the new edition.</p>
<p>ok i'm looking for the 2nd edition vol. 1 physics book for my physics class. At amazon.com they have 2nd Sol Mn edition. Does anyone know what it means? i tried googling it and and i can't find what it stands for?</p>
<p>Solutions Manual? Most science/math textbooks come w/a separate study guide/solutions manual.</p>
<p>definitely a solutions maunal</p>
<p>as for price of books for a semester... depends. English books (novels) are cheaper than Math books. A new math book or science book can cost $100-$150 (and come with a crap CD that you'll never use with "extra practice problems")</p>
<p>Argh, book-related rant: so the MIT campus bookstore stopped posting textbook listings online several years ago, to force people to come into the store and look up their books themselves if they wanted to buy online.</p>
<p>Well, this year they're not opening the textbook section of the store until a week before school starts. I know they're just doing it so people will figure they don't have enough time to order online, and it makes me really mad.</p>
<p>yeah...a week is def not enough. Professors usually want the book by the next few class sessions.</p>
<p>btw definitely buy books at amazon and apply for their visa card to get 30 off purchases. Then when you pay off your credit card statement. Just close the account or NEVER use that card again and you're home free with 30 dollars saved on textbook expenses.</p>