Places To Find Affordable Books

[Axel1917]

For some time, I have been gathering up books so I have stuff to read when I am moved out on my own (money will probably be tight on a janitor's wage). I have been trying to gather up various works. I have been looking for perhaps a bit of reference for psychology, and I was thinking of getting the six volumes of The Collected Works of L.S. Vygotsky. The problem is that these works are not cheap; most of the ones I have seen cost around $60 to $125+ per volume. I have tried amazon, abebooks, ebay, alibris, and powell's, to no avail. Perhaps these books are largely purchased by psychology students, hence an overpriced, college textbook-like price.

Well, if you don't know of where to get these works for cheaper, perhaps this thread could be turned into one that would allow us to share knowledge of where to get leftist and reference books at the cheapest price.

[Amusing Scrotum]

Off the top of my head, I seem to remember a thread in Politics where someone posted about a book company that was specifically leftist in orientation and sold books for dirt cheap. Perhaps if you use the search function and search Politics for "books" or something similar, you may turn up that thread.

Alternatively, if you broaden your web surfing beyond the realms of MIA, there are a few other sites that host books for free. The Libcom Library, for instance, has a wealth of free books and pamphlets....and it's a really diverse collection.

Additionally, if you have a decent Public Library near you, you'd probably find the mentioned work there....and, possibly, you could either pinch it or borrow it and photocopy it. But, generally speaking, non-popular books, that is good books, tend to cost a shit load....no matter who you buy them off.

[bezdomni]

Anazon and Ebay are usually pretty good. My girlfriend got her intro to psychology textbook and a workbook for like....4 USD off Ebay.

Other than that...see if there are any radical leftist book collectives in your area. There is one in Houston and they sell some pretty good books for just a few dollars. I always check there when I need a book for school.

You can also try university bookstores during the summer....a lot of times they'll put unused surplus books on sale or they'll sell used books for a pretty reasonable price.

Half-Priced books or really any used book stores are good too...but you have to hope they have the books you want. If you're looking for something really obscure, you're probably out of luck.

Hope that helps!

[Mesijs]

I use to order at Play.com, a British store without shipping costs. They don't have all books you may want, sadly.

[Year: 1]

www.getusedbooks.com

[cbm989]

The Local used Bookstore has just about EVERYTHING in my town. its where i get all my reading material. Its basicly a warehouse run by hippes thats full of books. Very cool place. And the books are cheap. I get my novels for required school reading there for about 7 bucks.

[Comrade Marcel]

Exactly what you are looking for is going to be hard to find. I don't think I have ever seen his stuff that was published out of the USSR, but if you found them it would probably be somewhat cheaper. Vygotsky is being resurrected somewhat, mostly by leftistish psychologists and intellectuals studying pedagogy, so I gather it is being republished in textbooks. But even used textbooks cost an arm and a leg. Don't know what to suggest, but let us know if you find a solution.

[Delta]

I usually get my books from Half.com (basically eBay). I don't know if it's the best, but it's certainly cheaper than amazon.

[Year: 1]

Amazon.com also has used books for sale and they are unbelievably cheap. I buy used books at Amazon all the time and it looks like getusedbooks.com is their supplier of used books because that is where some of the packages come from and also from regular people who want to get rid of their used books and make a few bucks. You have to use a debit/credit card in order to buy used books from Amazon. They don't give you the money order option for used books.

[bolshevik butcher]

Just to say you can read a vast marxist archive for free at www.marxist.org

[Ricardo]

Yeah man try a used bookstore, or get an excerpt from a book you want and type it into google. An ebook might come up.

[Axel1917]

Originally posted by [email protected] 27 2006, 04:03 AM
Anazon and Ebay are usually pretty good. My girlfriend got her intro to psychology textbook and a workbook for like....4 USD off Ebay.

Other than that...see if there are any radical leftist book collectives in your area. There is one in Houston and they sell some pretty good books for just a few dollars. I always check there when I need a book for school.

You can also try university bookstores during the summer....a lot of times they'll put unused surplus books on sale or they'll sell used books for a pretty reasonable price.

Half-Priced books or really any used book stores are good too...but you have to hope they have the books you want. If you're looking for something really obscure, you're probably out of luck.

Hope that helps!
I have not heard of any revolutionary leftist collectives of any kind. I live in a tiny suburban city here in Minnesota, so I have not seen anything. I have encountered another leftist, and I have seen an IWW pamphelt posted in a local cafe. Revolutionary types are probalby rather scattered and small in numbers where I live.

I will have to look around at university bookstores. There has to be some of this stuff included in some psychology programs.

I have not found any kind of cheap solution for this as of yet. I ususally manage to find things in abebooks.com (I managed to find a complete, 47 volume set of the Lenin Collected Works over there for around $450.00.), but these Vygotsky books are also expensive over there.

I will keep looking around. I don't have Internet at home, so sitting around using marxists.org is not much of an option due to organizational work I need to get done. I can't spend all day in a cafe or something like that.

The local Barnes and Noble does not have much. It is mostly popular fiction books (you will be hard-pressed to find leftist books other than The Communist Manifesto, Capital, vol. 1, The Marx-Engels Reader, Che's Motorcycle Dairies, and his Bolivian Diary over there). There is a small used bookstore, with a good deal of cheap stuff, but I have not had any luck there.

I have not been at my local library for some time, but I don't recall it being very good. I either missed something, or they don't have any leftist books over there. Living in a small suburban city is not very good. I am going to move somewhere bigger sometime, hopefully by the end of the year.

I have tried half.com. The cheapest one over there is almost $50.00. Still way too much (you could get two Marx-Engels Collected Works volumes for that, or several Lenin Collected Works ones for that price!).