student books

rangemore_2

hi my son need to buy some books for uni can anyone tell me where the best place to buy cheap ones online or shops or anywhere. he be doing music techology. any help will be much appreciated thanks

NovaBlack_2

amazon usually has some great second hand books. you just go on as normal but when you find the book your after rather than click the buy it new button, you just look at used ones. Can get some books that normally cost about £20 second hand on there for about £1 !!! dirt cheap!

plus amazon will protect the purchase and refund you if for some reason it doesnt arrive!

Broke_Student

I would advise him to wait until he is at Uni if he is just going into the first year:
- Alot of the books on the reading lists are not used or used very little! He could just use the library copies if the course only makes reference to a single chapter.
- He can use the range of Uni library books first and get a feeling for which texts have a style that suit him best. This is alot better than getting one in advance and finding he finds it hard to learn from.
- There are often special discounts on course books at the Uni bookshop during the first few weeks of term.

Tips for when you buy books:
- Generally high street stores sell at the RRP and are most expensive.
- Uni bookstores are often cheaper and have specialist books without having to order them in and wait weeks for delivery.
- Waterstones does a 10% standard discount for students. Just show a Uni Card, NUS Card or Natwest Rail Card.
- Waterstones gives 8% cashback via Quidco but during some weeks they give a double 16% back! Waterstones also regularly have 20% off all books online offers (and online is already cheaper than instore!). Look out for codes in the discount code section of this website. The codes can be combined with Quidco so up to 36% off!
- Get used copies of texts from the Uni second hand bookstore, ebay or from older students offering them for sale (look out on noticeboards).
- You can buy National Book Tokens for less than face value off ebay - these can be used at almost all bookstores!
- WHS seem to have a constant 200 points (£2) on a £5 spend voucher to print (see the vouchers forum). This can be used with National Book Tokens!

jovichick123

You could try Green Metropolis, all books are £3.75 there and it's good for the environment... eBay can also be good for some books but you can end up paying above the odds if you're not careful!

Cazza

If he can't find the books he wants second hand, then www.bookbrain.co.uk is good - it searches all the web based booksellers and takes into account postage too (or it always used to!)

Broke Student is right in saying to wait until he gets there to see what the reading lists are - lots of lectures have their favourites!

Wolfsbayne

Cazza wrote: »

If he can't find the books he wants second hand, then www.bookbrain.co.uk is good - it searches all the web based booksellers and takes into account postage too (or it always used to!)

Broke Student is right in saying to wait until he gets there to see what the reading lists are - lots of lectures have their favourites!

Yes, wait until he gets there and advise him to speak to a second year. I brought so many books that I only used a few pages out of or found there were hundreds of copies at library - the second years can advise of the absolutely necessary textbooks and those that aren't. From what I remember of my friends studying music technology (at Scarborough) they brought very few textbooks as the library had it all and was 2 mins from halls.

rangemore_2

thanks everyone yeah he going to scarborough i did mention to him abt uni might hav it cheap there but we got a letter from them to say he need them books.. i hav found another website that pretty good it called
www.abebooks.co.uk
i hav been to w h smith to get the price WOW!!! so dear!!! so thanks everyone for your help babs

Wolfsbayne

Scarborough is a fab place to go to uni, I really enjoyed my three years there!

There is another site that might help called readitswapit - its a swapping site but I have managed to pick up a few medical textbooks on there so you never know and swapshop.co.uk too (you can use paypal to get books here). Sometimes you find the books you need in the wierdest places!

Oh, and when uni say HAVE to have them, bear in mind that many textbooks are written by the lecturers and they want to profit from there students. Example, we HAD to buy twentieth century performance reader, it was expensive, was written by professor noel witts (head of department) and we used all of two chapters, twice over two years and guess what, there were around thirty copies in the library and only seventy students over the entire three years. I also HAD to buy a biography of Samuel Beckett for a module I was doing and then found out it was for background reading and the whole group could have easily shared the same book.

A good thing to remember. Your son will receive his assignments/essays during his first week of lectures. He should have a good look at them (often you can choose which one you want to do), go to the library and see which books are suitable and then buy them. Also, don't be fooled into thinking you have to buy the exact edition they say. They often say its important because they want their students to go to the same page, etc but unless you're doing something medical/law, etc things dont really change that much and an earlier, cheaper edition would be fine.

jollyanna

A NatWest student railcard also acts to give a 10% discount at Waterstones. I found this out today when reading the stuff that arrived with my son's railcard.

Gingernutmeg

It's also sensible to look at when the book was published when you're buying second hand - I know that when I was at uni we were often told to buy the latest edition as the books are often updated or changed (sometimes beyond recognition lol!) So, a really cheap copy of a book may be a really old one and it might not be much use for uni ...

QuirkyChemistry

I have found that www.bookdepository.co.uk has had some good deals for my new books in the past and has free delivery. You are probably best off looking at second hands books when at university though. Try to see if there are any discounts available by being a member of a relevant professional/student organisation.