Re: [TCLUG:18442] What books do you recommend for a newbie?

[Gabe Turner <dopp@acm.cs.umn.edu>]

Hmm, I've had no such experience.. though I've never ordered out-of-stock books.
There shipping is incredibly cheap on large orders.  I paid $7 (maybe $9, can't quite remember) for 2nd day air.  That order was for 5 books totaling about $100
dollars.  I was pleased.  I don't tend to do the one-book-at-a-time thing.  I usually drop $100-$200 at a time.

Gabe

> 
> > >   There's just *gotta* be a catch...
> 
> I placed one order with bookpool (last October) before closing my account
> there.
> 
> I ordered 3 books.  Two were in stock, the other was backordered.  A month
> later, the third book was still backordered with no expected date of
> availability and I was never contacted and asked whether they should ship the
> available books.  When I complained about this, I was essentially stonewalled
> with, "We can't afford to do two shipments at the same price as one" - even
> after I explicitly stated (twice!) that that's not what I was asking for,
> just email saying, "We still don't have your book.  Do you want us to send
> the rest of your order now, even though it means you'll get charged a little
> more for shipping?".
> 
> Incidentally, the backordered book was in stock at Amazon and fatbrain both
> when the order was placed and when I went back to check on it a month later.
> I suspect that it was continually available from the other booksellers during
> the time bookpool was out of stock, but I haven't attempted to verify this.
> 
> In order to get the two books that were available, I had to cancel the entire
> original order and reorder them.  Customer service confirmed that (at that
> time, at least) they had no method in place to remove books from an existing
> order.
> 
> Finally, I ended up ordering 2 of the books from fatbrain and the third from
> bookpool.  fatbrain charged $4.90 for shipping 2 books and they arrived in
> 2-3 days.  bookpool charged $5.38 for shipping 1 book and it took roughly a
> week to get here.
> 
> Since then, I've stuck with fatbrain.
> 
> -- 
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> "So does syphillis. Good thing we have penicillin." - Matthew Alton
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-- 
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Gabe Turner		X-President, ACM @ U of MN	     dopp@acm.cs.umn.edu

"Get out of my trash!  I'm telling you for the last time!  A man works
 hard for his filth, just to have vagrants steal it.
 It's a cryin' shame."
			- George Liquor in "The Boy Who Cried Rat!"
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