Where/how do you buy your STEM textbooks?

[fluidistic]

What the title reads.

Ebooks count. Do you buy used textbooks too?

Personally, I usually try to get a PDF/djvu file of a book I am interested in (and/or simply skim through it via Google book if possible). If I like it, I check its price on Amazon, buy it if it is cheap (I take into account the price and also the number of pages. Paying 13 euros for a 100 pages book? No.). I also check its price on Abebooks, even if it is a used textbook. I got a very cheap book on solid state physics on Abebooks. Something like 10 euros for a textbook coming from a library in England, the book had been borrowed only twice in its lifetime, once in 2003 and once in 2006, needless to say it was in perfect conditions (and even solidified compared to the original non hard cover).
There are a few books I paid over 50 euros to get (Optics by Born & Wolf, Introduction to many-body physics by Coleman, Modern Condensed Matter Physics by Girvin).

So far I haven't bought any book for the Kindle (even though I own a Kindle), usually the comments are pretty negative regarding the display of math expressions, so I do not even consider buying a single text-ebook that way.

 

[Wrichik Basu]

It's been quite some time since I bought any book. Since the COVID lockdown, our college library has scanned many important books, and they are available through our college portal. If I need a book that is not available there, I go to College Street (or ask the bookseller at our college to get it for me).

 

[berkeman]

What the title reads.

Well, you can support PF by buying via the PF link to Amazon...

Buy on Amazon etc via PF
PF has opened affiliate account with Amazon. That means if you click a link to one of these stores on PF then PF receives around 5% of your purchase amount. That really helps with our bills! Great for when you are shopping for a holiday or the new school semester.