Do you buy your books or borrow them from the library? (1 Viewer)

[bubz :D]

lol you could be really cheap and read in kinokuniya for an hour

 

[Gregor Samsa]

Originally posted by Nupil
I'm just thankful that I live in the age where there is amazon.com (Far far too many hours spent here by yours truly!)

Like Gregor Samsa pointed out, libraries are usually limited (My own horrid experience yesterday!) ... but then I've found some bookshops have also been quite lacking as well.

Quite. Particularly locally. (Western Sydney). Newtown and Sydney itself have some very good bookshops. (Impressed with the range of Foucault and other such authors at the Co-Op for instance, or Elizabeth's in Newtown being large and inexpensive.)

Speaking of which, is anyone else in the position of soon having to purchase university textbooks?

 

[christ_ine]

I buy them - mostly at discount bookstores. I once got a book for $2 that Dymocks was selling for $50

 

[Nupil]

Book shop near Central

 

[Nupil]

Originally posted by Gregor Samsa

Speaking of which, is anyone else in the position of soon having to purchase university textbooks?

I'm a wee bit worried about this, when exactly are we meant to buy them? Post-lectures, yah?

I recall one of my Uni mates telling me that he used to photocopy the entire textbook, and bind it at Officeworks - worked out to about $35 ... form my hazy memory at least.

Can you buy textbooks from most bookshops? Or selected bookshops by the Universities?

I wanted to own my own bookshop/cafe. But do you all honestly - not in our bias and love for books jaded eyes - see a market for it?

How many textbooks do you all have to buy? I think mine is going to be over $700, as a past student guessed.

My computer is dieing - so excuse lack of proof reading, invent your own imaginative solutions to my typos!

 

[SoCal]

Originally posted by Lexicographer
The only exeptions I make are for Classics (as I'm getting a leatherbound collection...when I inherit it).

Do only the Classics come leather bound and how much more do they cost?

Originally posted by Lexicographer
I also don't reread books very much, unless it has been many years since I last read them.

I suppose that is true for me too. It is coming up to about five years since I have read some books and I can hardly remember anything of them, so it might be time to go through them again.

Originally posted by Lexicographer
That said I collect series like Discworld and Tolkien (yes all of them), since I one day hope to go through them all again at leisure. Of course I keep them all in mint condition...though I need another bookcase.

I love those authors too. I own just about everything J.R.R. Tolkien released related to The Lord Of The Rings but The Discworld series, well that is over twenty now and if you are buying all of them in hardback edition, you must be going through some money!

 

[SoCal]

Originally posted by Gregor Samsa
A major factor in my buying books, other than for the purposes of re-reading, reference, and literary pride, is that many of the books I buy aren't at local libraries, therefore eliminating the option.

Very true. My local library only has very few of the authors I like to read, so I have to go into Newcastle Library (about a half an hour drive) to borrow the books.

 

[SoCal]

Originally posted by Nupil
I'm just thankful that I live in the age where there is amazon.com (Far far too many hours spent here by yours truly!)

That is the best source for reviews ever. I spend a lot of time on their myself looking up authors recommend and I love all the list they have there (do you know the ones I am talking about?).

Originally posted by Nupil
How many textbooks do you all have to buy? I think mine is going to be over $700, as a past student guessed.

$700! Is that for only one year or the whole degree?

 

[bubz :D]

my couisn said you spend a LOT of money on textbooks at uni

 

[Lexicographer]

Merenthrond:

I don't think anyone releases leatherbound books anymore, something about loving cows or whatever. Clothbound is the more common. The reason I'm getting leather is because I'm eventually going to inherit the family library, or at least what's left of it and accessible.

As for the discworld books, I'm having amazing trouble collecting the first 20 or so, since they were released before I'd started reading them. However, when I did start I read the entire series in a month (yes, sluggish I know) and immediately started buying up the books. I usually just wait for A+R to knock $10 or so off the RRP before I nab them. When that fails Basement Books at Central (below Railway Square, can't miss it) often churns up some surprises. I got The Wee Free Men there for about half price.

 

[SoCal]

Originally posted by Lexicographer
As for the discworld books, I'm having amazing trouble collecting the first 20 or so, since they were released before I'd started reading them.

I can imagine the trouble of trying to find them all in hardback edition. There are vast quantities of the whole series in paperback around Newcastle though.

Originally posted by Lexicographer
However, when I did start I read the entire series in a month (yes, sluggish I know)

Anything but sluggish.

 

[christ_ine]

You can check out your textbook lists at www.coop-bookshop.com.au/ - but I wouldn't really buy anything until after your first lecture and/or tut so you don't waste money and time purchasing things you won't need.

 

[Gregor Samsa]

Originally posted by Nupil
I'm a wee bit worried about this, when exactly are we meant to buy them? Post-lectures, yah?

How many textbooks do you all have to buy? I think mine is going to be over $700, as a past student guessed.

Depends on the course. The required textbooks are often listed in the UoS info, in which case, getting them before lectures is only beneficial.

For first semester, I have to buy at least two textbooks (Although luckily, they double as reference books so I can justify purchasing them ), plus readings booklets. Will probably end up being around $200 or thereabouts.

 

[SoCal]

Originally posted by christ_ine
You can check out your textbook lists at www.coop-bookshop.com.au/ - but I wouldn't really buy anything until after your first lecture and/or tut so you don't waste money and time purchasing things you won't need.

Thanks for the site christ_ine.

 

[clerisy]

Originally posted by bubz
like the library in disney's "beauty and the beast"....

Aah! That has been my life's dream since the very first time I read a book by myself! If I achieve nothing in my life except the massive private library, I will have been ecstatically happy (though in order to afford such a library, I shall probably have to achieve something else). I usually buy second hand books because they're so much cheaper, but, if I go by my Dymocks Booklovers loyalty card, I've probably spent about $800 on new books in the past two years (though, in defence, some of them were Christmas/bday present coffee table books for people which are not cheap).

One of these days, I'll get there...!

 

[Nupil]

I don't know if any of you know about it ... it's a textbook site - I have no idea where it's been posted on boredofstudies or indeed if it has. Try: www.textbookexchange.com.au as well, I registered last night and am hoping that there will be people eager too sell!

Thought I'd mention it

 

[jhakka]

I buy books. I don't like library ones, or the idea that I have to return it after so long.

 

[Lexicographer]

After so long? What, two weeks?

 

[inasero]

i buy books to hoard
but in alls eroiusness, library books suck, specially the ones round my area...all the ones i want to read are usually out for loan anyways and i cant be bothered to reserve them

 

[freaking_out]

i always borrow books from library- the only books i bought were study guides for hsc. LoL