International Editions (Score 1)

When I was in school I was suprised to learn about "international editions". All the Indian guys that were in my research lab had the same books, but theirs had a black and white soft-cover and slightly worse print. Now that I'm overseas I find these all the time at a fraction of what I remember paying for textbooks. Who cares if they don't have a color hard-cover, the content that you're buying them for is the same. The amusing thing is that they often have some text on them: "Nor for sale outside ". I've always wondered whether that's actually enforceable. I will say that the *one* bad thing about them is their lack of durability. Keeping one on a book shelf in your lab or room is fine, but I'm not totally sure they'd get through an entire semester of being carted around in a backpack. The comment above about the Chinese texts being broken into parts is also nice in this regard as they're lighter to carry around *and* wear and tear is spread out across several different books. If only I could find book covers of some sort... Besides, any half-decent student waited a week or so to see what a class was like. If the professor didn't really use the book and relied more on his own notes, etc. or if the book just plain sucked, well... then it's a purchasing decision. Or drop the class if it's that bad...