How Do You Guys Keep Up with New Textbook Releases?

[Amrator]

Like many of you, I love physics and math textbooks. I'm always on the look out for new textbooks that will aid in my understand of both subjects. But it's just not practical to scroll through Amazon all the time to find new textbooks. How do you guys go about it?

For example, I really love the Student's Guide series. How do I find more new books similar to this series?

 

[PhDeezNutz]

I don’t really “keep up” with new textbook releases because new textbooks can be expensive.

Where I live there is a chain of used book stores called “half price books” that sometimes has old textbooks for really cheap.

I’ve bought numerous Dover books from there for less than $10.

Also you have piqued my curiosity with “Student’s Guide”. I might buy some titles.

 

[Frabjous]

Every couple of months Physics Today has a list of new releases.

 

[Frabjous]

By the way, books always look better the first time you look at them. I generally place books I find of interest in my amazon cart and let them sit there for SEVERAL weeks before making a purchase decision. Time is a very effective sieve.

 

[dextercioby]

At the risk of getting "that's ignorance", here is my take: I believe there are subjects in science where there is literally no need for new textbooks for university learners. Any science topic meant for learning has at least 5 textbooks which should 99,9% cover the whole story for the regular 4-5 years of study. Take for example fluid mechanics or general topology. What more can you add in 2022 in a book that has not been covered in the 1951-2000 half-century? Sure, there are topics in computer science and microbiology in which the need to write the new discoveries in a structured form in the textbooks is bigger, but most of the topics are really exhausted, and all books appearing yearly or every couple of years are nothing but commercial mash-ups of the same content.

 

[Demystifier]

Amazon recommendations, this forum, citations in papers, ...

 

[vanhees71]

Physics Today just brought out it's list of new books:

https://physicstoday.scitation.org/do/10.1063/PT.6.3.20220407a/full/

 

[Dragon27]

Physics Today just brought out it's list of new books:

https://physicstoday.scitation.org/do/10.1063/PT.6.3.20220407a/full/

Quantum physics​

• Mind-Body Entanglements Theory and Therapies, P. Uzan (Springer, 2022) $69.99

*raises an eyebrow*

 

[Demystifier]

Physics Today just brought out it's list of new books:

https://physicstoday.scitation.org/do/10.1063/PT.6.3.20220407a/full/

Making Sense of Statistical Mechanics, J. Bricmont (Springer, 2022) $69.99

 

[dextercioby]

Physics Today just brought out it's list of new books:

https:

Our member @Orodruin just published a book on problems in relativity, or am I wrong?

 

[berkeman]

He did indeed!

(check out his updated avatar)

 

[Orodruin]

Our member @Orodruin just published a book on problems in relativity, or am I wrong?

That seems accurate.

As for the question in the OP, there are many ways. One of the ways not mentioned is that as faculty I get a visit from a gentleman from Cambridge University Press who is more than happy to ask about my current teaching, what textbooks I am currently using and to discuss what new textbooks they have that could be of interest.

 

[CGandC]

It reminds me that my professor of Mechanics course was called to the faculty's secretary office and was told that he hadn't updated the syllabus of the course since he started teaching it. He told them that there was nothing to change since the theory of Mechanics hasn't changed for a hundered and more years, therefore there's nothing to change.

Like @dextercioby said, most new releases of a certain subject are regurgitations of the main, canonical ideas one studies at a university course relevant to the subject. For example, if you will study Mechanics, you will see many textbooks teaching the same topics like Gyroscopic rotations, non-uniform acceleration, Work-Energy theorem... . Difference can be that some books might present some topics in a way that is more suitable to your understanding, but overall, I think in every field ( topology, mechanics, quantum mechanics, algorithms ) you will find canonical books which will teach you very well about at-least 90% of the material you'll ever need in those subjects in order to say " I know X " where X is the topic itself.

 

[haushofer]

If I want to read a new textbook, I write one.