joyogunx

Do students usually buy their book from the Blue Devil Store or from Amazon.com which seems a lot more inexpensive? And, how can I find the required books for the class?

SirGecko

They should post the list on the online bookstore. Sometime near the end of July.

A lot of people do buy their books from the bookstore but a lot of people also order from online retailers. There are pro's and con's to both.

Bookstore is going to usually cost more but they will have nearly all of your books. You can also return the books for a full refund up until drop/add ends. So if you aren't sure if you will switch classes that's a great thing.

Online you are going to save a lot of dough. The downside though is that sometimes it can be unreliable. (I went half a semester borrowing a text book because half.com never shipped my order) Also you will often get the international edition and not everyone will be honest about identifying it as such. (not a hugh deal if you can get it for really cheap, you just can't sell it back to the bookstore)

Overall I'd say that online retailers are worth it for the first few years at least. Just make sure you compare between the bookstore and online sources before you buy. (use one of those sites where you enter the isbn and it gives you all the prices around the web, Amazon often isn't the best deal you can find) Personally I used them up until I got to my engineering electives. At that point the books became a lot rarer online because the courses aren't as standardized across universities. (easy to find a chemistry or biology textbook because all schools teach this, hard to find a tissue engineering one)

Hope that helped!

adrivit

Thanks Gecko! Any idea, what those sites could be which list all prices with the ISBN?

duke500

Hey guys, I've found the following site to be useful:

Compare Prices on New & Used Textbooks, Cheap Textbooks - GetTextbooks.com

Buying online saves a ton of money.

noobcake

Bookstore is convenient and easy, but very expensive.

If you buy online, make sure you buy the US edition/student edition of the textbook (clearly stated) so that you can sell it back to the bookstore if you want. You can break even (or lose little) with any hardcover science/math/engineering textbook. The bookstore pays decent prices for these books, but pennies on the dollar for novels/softcover textbooks for less popular courses.

HiWei

Yea, i agree with the people who responded above. There is no reason why you should ever buy books from the bookstore unless you're really desparate to get it immediately - like you forgot to buy it and you have a test the next day.

Buying from online stores like amazon, B&N, half/ebay will work well. Past the first year or so, if you know a few people who have just taken the course, you can always just buy it from them. You probably get it at a really good price and very quickly.

askabob91

So how do you know what books to buy

SBR

Duke Bookstore Book Finder:

Duke University Bookstore - Textbooks

Fall books will be posted soon.

Search tool is your friend.

knat

(Update: Fall books are up now.)

TownMeDurham

Here's some really useful advice on buying and selling cheap textbooks: Buy/Sell Cheap Textbooks - Durham, NC