ebooks are usually much cheaper than physical books
Rarely true for secondhand older books, usually true for newer books or relatively rare older works (which unfortunately includes many academic books). I can often pick up secondhand books for literally pennies; I’m a newcomer to e-reading but not convinced yet that it’s going to bring savings overall.
ETA: in case that’s not clear, I think this post is missing a huge tip for efficient acquisition of words: secondhand physical books. It’s worth saying because some people—I used to be in that number—have a hangup about buying used books. I’ve totally changed my mind on that, largely thanks to Amazon Marketplace. Riffling through stacks in a used book store holds no appeal for me, but looking up some title that looks interesting and seeing a copy on Marketplace for a euro or less, and buying it without even a second thought? Pure bliss.
I have to say, my automatic thought when I read your comment was “riffling through stacks in a used book store? Bo-ring! And time consuming!” Then I saw the addition about online shopping. I have bought a few physics books second-hand online before, although if I’m not mistaken it still cost $50 for a first year textbook, not something I’m willing to pay unless I’m very interested in the subject.
From my experience that depends heavily on the textbook’s content. You can go quite a few editions down in the humanities without any change.
Most first year books can use last year’s edition or even the year before, not for a class of course, but for your own use. Classical mechanics hasn’t changed much since Newton.
Now when you start getting into the “Oxford/MIT/Harvard/Fancy U/ handbook handbook range I’ve seen higher than $150, being used only drove the price up.
Classical mechanics has changed significantly since Newton, with two reformulations not even counting relativity.
Newtonian classical mechanics is late 1600s, with “laws of motion” from 1687. Lagrangian mechanics was formulated in 1788. Hamiltonian mechanics in 1833. And of course, each of these gets relativistic modifications and formulations...
It’s true that you don’t need “the latest” book, but you probably do want one that’s from the last 50 years.
Book price search engines help you find the very lowest price among online used book stores. They scrape Amazon, half.com, albiris, etc. and show you what the prices are in one place. There are a bunch of these, but I generally use booksprice.com.
Rarely true for secondhand older books, usually true for newer books or relatively rare older works (which unfortunately includes many academic books). I can often pick up secondhand books for literally pennies; I’m a newcomer to e-reading but not convinced yet that it’s going to bring savings overall.
ETA: in case that’s not clear, I think this post is missing a huge tip for efficient acquisition of words: secondhand physical books. It’s worth saying because some people—I used to be in that number—have a hangup about buying used books. I’ve totally changed my mind on that, largely thanks to Amazon Marketplace. Riffling through stacks in a used book store holds no appeal for me, but looking up some title that looks interesting and seeing a copy on Marketplace for a euro or less, and buying it without even a second thought? Pure bliss.
I have to say, my automatic thought when I read your comment was “riffling through stacks in a used book store? Bo-ring! And time consuming!” Then I saw the addition about online shopping. I have bought a few physics books second-hand online before, although if I’m not mistaken it still cost $50 for a first year textbook, not something I’m willing to pay unless I’m very interested in the subject.
From my experience that depends heavily on the textbook’s content. You can go quite a few editions down in the humanities without any change.
Most first year books can use last year’s edition or even the year before, not for a class of course, but for your own use. Classical mechanics hasn’t changed much since Newton.
Now when you start getting into the “Oxford/MIT/Harvard/Fancy U/ handbook handbook range I’ve seen higher than $150, being used only drove the price up.
Classical mechanics has changed significantly since Newton, with two reformulations not even counting relativity.
Newtonian classical mechanics is late 1600s, with “laws of motion” from 1687. Lagrangian mechanics was formulated in 1788. Hamiltonian mechanics in 1833. And of course, each of these gets relativistic modifications and formulations...
It’s true that you don’t need “the latest” book, but you probably do want one that’s from the last 50 years.
Book price search engines help you find the very lowest price among online used book stores. They scrape Amazon, half.com, albiris, etc. and show you what the prices are in one place. There are a bunch of these, but I generally use booksprice.com.