[Tutor] Bookpool sale on Addison Wesley

[bhaaluu]

Greetings,

On 8/9/07, Sean Azelton <sazelton at nd.edu> wrote:
>
> Can anyone tell me why the below book is listed as SOOOO expensive?

It might be a textbook? Textbooks are always expensive.

> With the sale Kent mentioned, it looks like a great deal - but
> unfortunately I don't really know anything about the authors.
>
> Object-Oriented Programming in Python
> Michael H Goldwasser, David Letscher
> Prentice Hall
> List Price: $102.00
> Our Price: $55.95
> You Save: $46.05 (45% Off)
>
> Estimated Publication Date November 2007, 700 pages, ISBN 0136150314

It hasn't been published yet.
Often, people review books before they are published, so look
for a review of the book.

> Is this a good buy?

That's really hard to say until people have read it and reviewed it.
The review by the book's publisher is usually prejudiced in favor of
the book, as are the reviews by the author, his family, and friends. =)

Unless you can get a complimentary 'review copy', and check it out
for yourself (and write review for the rest of us), you won't know
until people have had a chance to check it out. This may very well
be a 2nd or subsequent edition, in which case, you may be able
to find a review of a previous edition, and judge the book by those
reviews. If it is a new edition, and you think $50 is too much to spend,
check this site out:

http://used.addall.com

They list books from most of the used-book dealers (Alibris, Amazon,
Abebooks, Biblio, Powells, etc.). I usually check Price Ascending
to get the low prices. Caveat: when buying from used-book
dealers, the lowest-price dealer isn't always the best deal!
Check out their over-all track-record. Is this the 1st book
they're selling, or the 12,000th? What kind of positive feedback
rating do they have? Other than that (common-sense?) warning,
*I* have had great success buying used-books from used-book
dealers.

>
> Thanks,
>
> Sean Azelton
> University of Notre Dame

Often, a previous edition of a textbook can be found for less than
half the cover price of the newest edition. If the new edition hasn't
been completely reformated or otherwise changed, the previous
edition will serve nicely. Often errata can be found for older editions.

Happy Programming!
-- 
bhaaluu at gmail dot com