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The laws regarding purchasing the international copy of a book (international copies of the same book which have different ISBN numbers and are technically not to allowed to be sold in US) are a bit murkey. But it appears that you can, indeed, get those books legally.

A blurb from a rather lengthy reply on Google Answers: http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=295219
"The current state of US law is that international versions of textbooks that are lawfully manufactured under the authorization of the copyright holder can be legally imported by a party that has acquired them outside of the US, for subsequent resale within the US. While the copyright holder can require that their license holders (the international printers) do not themselves ship manufactured copies directly for public distribution in the US without prior consent, the copyright holder cannot prevent a party from purchasing lawfully manufactured copies outside the US, and importing them into the US for sale or otherwise disposal."

Check out http://firstandsecond.com/

For the opportunists amongst you, this does present an arbitrage opportunity to buy books abroad and resell them in US, though it is my understanding that companies like Amazon and EBAY have provisions against resale of such books.

I've never used this service but a book like Mitchell's "Machine Learning" would be $18 in India so the thought has crossed my mind.

http://www.firstandsecond.com/store/books/info/boo kinfo.asp?txtSearch=946776

Anecdotal evidence from a friend that used to live in India says the bindings are terrible and they fall apart, but that wouldn't really bother me.

Check out www.firstandsecond.com. Search for Special Low-Priced Indian Edition, and get really really cheap books. C++ Programming Language by Stroustrup for Rs. 600 + 1000 for shipping. That's almost $35. Amazon has it for $57. Buying more books, will get you more savings.

Look here: click

"Modern Operating Systems" costs 250 Indian Rupees which translates to 5.5 USD! And they even call it "Special Indian Price". There is also another version which does not have the "Special Indian Price" thing which costs 5427 (!!) Indian Rupees (122 Dollars): click

I'm curiuos if they will ship the Speical Indian Price book outside India ;-)

Look here: click

"Modern Operating Systems" costs 250 Indian Rupees which translates to 5.5 USD! And they even call it "Special Indian Price". There is also another version which does not have the "Special Indian Price" thing which costs 5427 (!!) Indian Rupees (122 Dollars): click

I'm curiuos if they will ship the Speical Indian Price book outside India ;-)

hello all,

You can try First & Second. They claim to be India's biggest online book store and have a nice 72 hour shipping to the US.

Another one is Fabmart

I have always used Economy Asian Editions printed in India because the original American / European editions cost at least 10 times more. Happy shopping

First and second - they ship within 72 hours if the book is in stock. (this is an indian site)

http://www.firstandsecond.com

If you thought that was bad, check out the price of the same book in an Indian bookstore:

FirstAndSecond.com sells this book for INR 245 (5 USD!).
And you can write a review and save another $2!

I have observed that most textbooks can be bought from here. Drawback is that the Indian Editions are paperback, the print quality is also a lot poorer. Advantage is, the books are usually a tenth of what they cost in the states.

I have been using Indian Editions all my student life, so the relatively poor quality does not pertrube me much.