I am about to make a purchase of some 10 math textbooks, maybe more.
My shopping list is not yet complete and already summing their prices
at amazon.com gives a total of about 717$ - these things are
expensive! However I noticed that if I go to the publishers' websites
the list prices that they quote are sometimes lower by 20-30%. I would
still prefer to buy all the books on one site and not have to go to
each publisher separately. Also some of the publishers don't handle
individual orders. Can anyone tell me of a good site? The site must be
able to ship the books to Israel within a reasonable time (several
weeks would be fine) and at a competitive rate.
For reference and to get you started in your search, here are some of
the more expensive books I plan to buy - if you can save me money on
those alone you will have made it worth my while to post this question
here:
-The Art of Computer Programming (vols. 1-3) by Donald Knuth, listed
at 150$ at amazon.com, the publisher is listed as Addison-Wesley but
their site cannot find this book.
-Real and Complex Analysis by Walter Rudin, listed at 146$ at amazon,
112.80$ at the publisher McGraw-Hill
-Random Matrices, by Mehta (111$ at amazon, 94.95$ at the publisher
Academic Press)

Other books in my list with amazon prices ranging around 60$:
Concrete Mathematics by Knuth+Graham+Pathashnik
An Introduction to the Theory of Numbers by Hardy+Wright
Homology Theory by Vick
Characteristic Classes by Milnor+Stasheff

Good luck in your search!
dannidin

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Request for Question Clarification by hedgie-ga on 02 Jul 2002 11:47 PDT

Do you require the books to be new or would you consider used ones?
There are several 'student exchanges' I can list.

Hi,

I recommend you to go on http://www.addall.com witch give very good
prices for a few of the titles you mentioned and good shipping time.

I found this site entering cheapest math textbook for sell.

I entered Israel as the shipping country. Then:

A) I typed The Art of Computer Programming volume 1  as the title.
This gave me (shipping included) $28.38 for the lowest price and
$142.50 for the most expensive one.

B) I typed The Art of Computer volume 3 as the title.
This gave me (shipping included): $30 for the cheapest price and 73.36
for the most expensive one.

Than I went to http://www.half.com (which I had found when I had
entered cheapest math textbook for sell)

On this site I found:

Homology Theory: an introduction to Algebraic Topology for $28.15 to
$61.50

Hope all this does help you!

Sabine-ga.

PS: I'll try to post some more title prices if I get the chance to...

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Request for Answer Clarification by dannidin-ga on 02 Jul 2002 13:01 PDT

Maybe I'm spoiled by the excellent standard of answers on Google
Answers, but: I was expecting an answer that would be a little more
than just checking one or two of the titles I gave. I assumed the
researcher answering my question would either know good tips from
personal experience (as seems to be the case with the comment by
gamaiun-ga - thanks, I'll check it out) or will have done a reasonable
research work checking at least several of the titles I mentioned on
more than one site, and perhaps also searching for review articles of
online bookstores with an emphasis on textbooks would not have been a
bad idea?
By your own description, just buying a non-used copy of volumes 1 and
3 of Knuth's book would cost me $215 at addall.com. How is this
supposed to help me, when amazon offers all 3 volumes (in a bound
box!)  for 150$?
Anyway: I don't want used books. Please find me a site that you can
convincingly show would be cheaper than amazon.com for at least 3-4 of
the titles I mentioned. If you do even more than this, I will give you
a high rating, and, which is more important, I will be eternally
grateful :-)
Cheers,
dannidin

I am not happy with the answer. It is sloppy research and my request
for clarification was ignored.

There is no one site that consistently gives lower textbook prices on
all textbooks - the prices differ wildly across the various new and
used textbook shops.
One way to get around this is to use one of the book price search
engines, where you enter a title (or ISBN number, or author, etc), and
a price comparison list is displayed, for the various book sellers.
One such excellent engine is:
http://www.textbookprices.com/  (textbook-specific search engine)
and another is 
http://www.addall.com/  (general book search and price comparison).

So, for instance, using textbookprices.com, I was able to find Knuth's
Art of Computer Programming vols 1-3 for $91 used (from amazom.com)
and $118 new (walmart.com !).  Similar results were found for your
other textbooks - I suggest you try it out.

From what I've seen there isn't one particular site that offers lower
textbook prices, but rather one particular country (England)!  Try
comparing textbook prices between amazon.com and amazon.co.uk and
you'll find that the prices at the co.uk address (after conversion
from pounds to $s, of course) are significantly cheaper than the .com
prices for most textbooks.  Even after shipping is factored in they're
still cheaper!  And this isn't just true for Amazon: Try comparing
prices at other .uk VS .com shops while you're at it!
I'm not really sure WHY this is so, but I've saved a few bucks using
them throughout my college career!

<i>The Art of Computer Programming
by Donald Knuth<i><BR>
Amazon: $150<BR>
price comparison result by using 
<a href=http://www.addall.com/New/submitNew.cgi?query=0201485419&type=ISBN&location=10000&state=AK&dispCurr=USD>AddALL.com:
The Art of Computer Programming</a> <BR>
addall.com: the lowest used: $111.31
        the lowest new: $114.50

<i>Real and Complex Analysis 
by Walter Rudin<i><BR>
Amazon: $146, McGraw-Hill $112.80<BR>
price comparison result by using 
<a href=http://www.addall.com/New/submitNew.cgi?query=0070542341&type=ISBN&location=10000&state=AK&dispCurr=USD>AddALL.com:
Real and Complex Analysis </A>
addall.com: the lowest used: $82.36
        the lowest new: $101.62

<i>Random Matrices, 
by Mehta</I>
Amazon: $111, publisher: $94.95
price comparison result by using 
<a href=http://www.addall.com/New/submitNew.cgi?query=0124880517&type=ISBN&location=10000&state=AK&dispCurr=USD>AddALL.com:
Random Matrices</a>
addall: the lowest is $85.46 or $89.25