I [heart] Books from India

I have recently ordered a bunch of books from Books From India, aka AllTimeBooks.com, aka Oscar Publications. They are dramatically cheaper than the U.S. editions:

Title	U.S. (Amazon)	India (+ship)	Ratio
Statistical Mechanics by Pathria	$82.95 (82.95)	16.54 (21.54)	506% (385%)
Art of Electronics by Horowitz and Hill	95.00 (74.10)	15.84 (20.84)	600% (356%)
Quantum Field Theory in a Nutshell by Zee	52.50 (42.52)	11.09 (16.09)	473% (264%)
Total	$230.45 (199.47)	43.47 (58.47)	530% (341%)

The U.S. price of these three books are, on average, 524% of the price in India. Moreoever, comparing the (discounted) Amazon.com price with the Indian price including shipping, the cost to order books from Amazon is still 335% of the cost to order them from India. At $5/book, even postage from India is cheap.

In the case of Pathria, which I have already received, the edition is exactly the same as the U.S. edition (at least on cursory inspection) except for the addition of an Elsevier hologram on the front, a little oval that says "Respect Copyright — Eliminate Piracy," and this note on the reverse: "This edition is for sale in Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka. Sale and purchase of this edition outside of these territories is unauthorised." Make no mistake; it's authentically published by Elsevier. Buying their "foreign" editions is a satisfying way to give Elsevier the bird. (-:

To do: link to that post where I wrote to Academic Press asking why their books cost so much

Ryah's Subway Tour

Ryah (four) led the co-op and some other interested persons on a tour of the Abandoned Subway this last weekend; Girts posted some excellent photos (including the above) from the expedition.