absent.canadian

My parents are both prolific readers, and I grew up with a veritable library of reading material.  There are many books from my youth that made an impression on me, but perhaps none that inspired my imagination like one particular book.

Clifford Warren Ashley was an artist, author and sailor from Massachusetts.  He authored one of the seminal texts on marlinespike seamanship called “The Ashley Book of Knots”, and it was a book that I must have flipped through a few thousand times during my formative years.

Books about knots don’t seem all that inspiring, but Ashley’s wonderful pen-and-ink sketches of a lost captain’s gravestone adorned with elegant rope work (page 8), a couple of sailors carrying a trove of goods (page 155), and a beguiled child watching a rope trick with wide-eyed amazement (page 405) made me want to shed my safe suburban upbringing for the intrigue and adventure of the 19th century Maritimes.

But it wasn’t just the artwork.  Ashley’s schematic sketches of each knot can delight for hours, and I remember many evenings with no more entertainment than this book and a length of rope.  To this day, I can tie from memory a monkey’s fist (knot #2202), a farm splice (knot #2640) and a sailor’s eye splice (knot #2725).  The mysteries of the Turk’s Head are not unfamiliar to my fingers, and I’ve even tied some double wall knots (knot #676) in otherwise perfectly good line, just to see if I can make it look as good as Ashley does in his sketches.

Ashley manages in this book what so few can: he turns an otherwise mundane act into an adventure.  One can’t help but imagine sharing in the mysterious art of the mariner’s craft with a bit of rope in hand, and the little symbols he uses (the legend is somewhat cryptically hidden on page 27) make you want to search for similar knots.  And who among us hasn’t wondered if knots marked with the “dangerous” skull-and-crossbones symbol could actually be found on a pirate ship?  I certainly did.

The copy of the book I stumbled upon recently is old; a first-edition published in 1944 (sadly, only 4 years before Ashley’s passing).  It has the wonderful musty smell that only an old book can offer, and the pages have the well-thumbed feel that makes this reading this book as tactile an experience as the knot tying it inspires.

If you’ve read this book, you’ll certainly understand my sentiments.  If you haven’t read it, a copy shouldn’t be hard to track down at the local library.  Don’t bother reading it if you don’t have a few feet of good sturdy rope handy – and get ready for a nautical adventure!

So what’s up with the racket that universities call a bookstore?

I’m a smart shopper. Textbooks are expensive, and I know I can turn to places like eBay, half.com, Alibris, Powells, Amazon and Barnes and Noble to get a better deal on my books. Used books aren’t anything new to university campuses, but the ease and pervasiveness that the secondary marketplaces now enjoy make it painfully easy to get textbooks for a fraction of their MSRP.

So what’s the problem? The problem is getting a reading list well enough in advance to make smart shopping a viable alternative.

Universities are wise to this. And while the bookstores try to stock used books for students to buy, they still have to mark them up to a consistently higher price that makes the entire enterprise self-sustaining. Translation: used books from the bookstore are usually more expensive than used books bought directly from another student, or through some other secondary market channel.

Sure, we’re told that we’re assured the correct editions if we buy from the bookstore, but providing students would the ISBN numbers of the required books would alleviate any doubts about whether we’re buying the correct books.

The problem, of course, is simple: university bookstores don’t want to empower students to shop elsewhere. It’s a simple equation: make it difficult enough for students to shop elsewhere, and the majority will simply give in.

Not this shopper, thankyouverymuch. I feel no compunction about walking straight into a teacher’s office and asking them politely for a copy of the reading list (or better yet, to see the textbooks for myself) a few weeks before the course begins. I’m in my third year of university now (having taken over fifteen courses during my part-time career as an adult student), and I’ve not been turned away yet.

I’m probably breaking some arcane rule in the university, but I really don’t give a shit – especially after getting raped on my tuition fees (that’s another blog post for another day).

Armed with the ISBN numbers, I can usually find my textbooks for pennies on the dollar. Case in point: Millwards “Biography of the English Language” retails for $112. I just picked up a good used copy from half.com for $24. And while that’s a deal, it’s a lot more than I’m used to paying; I’ve scored some $100+ textbooks for less than $5.

This isn’t a gripe about the cost of textbooks themselves, but rather the restricted channels the university wants you to go through to get your materials. And therein lies the problem: universities seem to have a feeling of privilege and exclusivity – that the university will tell us how to do it, and we’ll do it exactly that way. We’re even supposed to feel good that we can score a used copy of a $112 textbook for only $86, when the exact same used textbook can be had in other secondary markets for a third of that “discounted” price.

Nor is this a gripe about the existence of university bookstores. I bought one of my textbooks for a class next semester at the university bookstore yesterday afternoon. In this case, it was a book that I simply couldn’t get elsewhere – and I wanted to have it in my hot little hands earlier than later.

So, to all students out there, I offer you the following thoughts on shopping for textbooks:

• If you want to buy new books or simply don’t want to take the time out of your schedule to shop, by all means utilize the university bookstore. You know you’ll get the right editions of your textbooks, and you probably won’t even need to track down which books go with which courses – it’ll all be done for you.
• If you choose to shop in the secondary markets, the first thing you’ll need to do is get a reading list for your classes. Many bookstores have online stores that let you look up books. This will usually give you the author and title, and you may get an edition number if you’re lucky.
• If you don’t get an edition number, or your bookstore doesn’t list textbooks online, then you’ll have to hoof it to your various professors’ offices to get the reading lists. It’s important to be polite to these people and gracious for the information you receive. If I can’t track down the professor in person, I’ll send them a polite email explaining that I’ll be taking their course in the upcoming semester, and that I’d like to get an early start on my book shopping.
• Remember: getting the correct edition of your textbooks is critical. In some cases, the differences are minor and the professor will allow you to use a different version of the same textbook; in other cases, having the right edition will mean the difference between succeeding in the course and belly flopping.
• The key is to get the ISBN number for each book. This is the unique numeric identifier that will positively identify which book you’re looking for. For most books, the ISBN can be found on the back cover, or on the title page. Write it down carefully.  If you don’t have access to the physical book, then try looking it up on Amazon.com.   And remember the golden rule: make sure you’re looking at the correct edition of the book. You’ll also get the benefit of seeing the MSRP of the book, and Amazon’s discounted price.  Amazon also lists used books now, and you may get lucky there, too.
• Now that you have your list of ISBN numbers, it’s time to go shopping. The easiest place to start is the google.com product search, where you can just type in the ISBN number (don’t put any hyphens or spaces in the number – just type it as one long string of numbers). Give it a try – you may be surprised! One important thing to keep in mind is that some online textbook merchants “rent” textbooks. This may or may not be a viable option for you – just make sure you know what you’re getting into!
• I find most of my bargains on eBay and half.com. Just type in the ISBN number and go to town! Make sure you read the item descriptions carefully, since you probably don’t want to end up with a textbook that has missing pages or important engineering models cut out and lost.
• Amazon.com, Alibris.com and Powells.com are also worth checking. The latter two tend to be better for looking for antique books and collectibles, but I’ve scored a few good deals through them. It certainly doesn’t hurt to look!
• If you’re really astute and have some hardback textbooks in your reading list, you may want to visit the publisher’s website to see if they published the same book in paperback (which will usually have a different ISBN number than the corresponding hardback). Paperback books are a great way to save money – just make sure you’re getting the same edition of the same book!
• Make sure you pay attention to the shipping costs – especially if the textbook is being shipped internationally.
• It usually takes about a week to get the textbooks in my hands – from the time I click the “order” button to the time the mail man graces my presence with packages and large envelopes. Just know that you’re not going to get the “instant gratification” and enjoy the savings!

And the best part: when you’re done with your textbooks, SELL THEM ONLINE! I list all of my textbooks on eBay and half.com, and I have sometimes sold them for more than I paid for them! And even if I lose a few dollars, it’ll almost certainly be cheaper than it would if I bought from, and re-sold to the university bookstore. Books sell best between semesters, so don’t be surprised if your old anthropology textbook doesn’t get any bids in February!

Happy book shopping, fellow students.