Thursday, August 19, 2004
I wish I lived in Bangladesh: The last installment of my cheap textbook adventure
The final book arrived today. I'm relieved because I now have them all, but I'm also a little worried that this discrete math book isn't quite ok. First of all, it says that it's only for sale in India, Nepal, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, and Bhutan. Second, it's ISBN and publisher are different from the version I expected. I guess it's by the Indian affiliate of McGraw-Hill. Third, it's missing some of the tables that are shown in the US version. Forth, it sells for less than $8 in India. Of course, I couldn't have legally purchased it from India anyway. I wish I were from Bangladesh. I probably could have gotten all my books for this semester brand new for less than 50 bucks.
Unless there is a major discrepancy between the homework problems in my book and the problems in the US version, I'll probably keep it and be ok, but I should have known that getting a $110 book for $40 was probably too good to be true.
Now that I've received all my books, I can evaluate the entire situation. Two of my five books were perfect and exactly as I wanted them. One of them was pretty darn close. It's the identical international version. It's in color and in great shape. Two of them fall in the "probably ok" category. I might buy my books off the internet again, but I think next time I'll be a little more selective and look at characteristics other than price. I'll also consider getting used books because it's probably better to have the identical American version with a little wear and tear than a brand new international version with differences in content.
The final book arrived today. I'm relieved because I now have them all, but I'm also a little worried that this discrete math book isn't quite ok. First of all, it says that it's only for sale in India, Nepal, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, and Bhutan. Second, it's ISBN and publisher are different from the version I expected. I guess it's by the Indian affiliate of McGraw-Hill. Third, it's missing some of the tables that are shown in the US version. Forth, it sells for less than $8 in India. Of course, I couldn't have legally purchased it from India anyway. I wish I were from Bangladesh. I probably could have gotten all my books for this semester brand new for less than 50 bucks.
Unless there is a major discrepancy between the homework problems in my book and the problems in the US version, I'll probably keep it and be ok, but I should have known that getting a $110 book for $40 was probably too good to be true.
Now that I've received all my books, I can evaluate the entire situation. Two of my five books were perfect and exactly as I wanted them. One of them was pretty darn close. It's the identical international version. It's in color and in great shape. Two of them fall in the "probably ok" category. I might buy my books off the internet again, but I think next time I'll be a little more selective and look at characteristics other than price. I'll also consider getting used books because it's probably better to have the identical American version with a little wear and tear than a brand new international version with differences in content.
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