Booklists are up, so if you, like me, would rather have an angry mob of pre-Meds batter you to death on Ho Plaza with their biology tomes than get ass-fucked by the Cornell Store’s prices, check these following options:

1) Amazon: The prices the site itself offers are usually marginally lower than those of the Store, but if you click on the convenient ‘new and used’ option over to the right, you can find online bookstores selling good-as-new books at 10-50% off. Don’t forget to weigh shipping into your costs.

2) eBay: Again, users will sell books at reduced rates but shipping comes into play. Try to buy a couple of books from the same user/vendor for reduced shipping costs.

3) Smaller textbook sites: Campusbooks.com is decent, but you’re better off with bigger vendors like Amazon and eBay because they are built-in user rating systems to prevent you from getting ripped off. Also, if you’re thinking about selling your books on these sites, the cut the site takes for itself can be pretty disgusting (around 15% sometimes) but Amazon screws you to about the same tune. Best to stick to eBay here: there are some costs involved in setting up a seller’s account on eBay — but they don’t take a cut of your sale.

4) Kraftee’s: They guarantee the same or lower prices than the Cornell Store’s (usually anywhere from 10% – 30%), and they’re located right in Collegetown near the corner of College and Dryden.

5) The god-forsaken library: The cheapest (free!) but most stressful option. First of all, it probably won’t work for textbooks because those are usually only on course reserve — which are readily available when it’s not exam time but who really studies until the week/day/hour before a test?  This might seem a good idea for a smallish seminar class, but other people are just as crafty and cheap as you and will beat your ass to the stacks. Use only as a last resort, I say — don’t you want a nice personal library of useless books at the end of your college career, anyway?

Conclusion: Look for the expensive $80+ textbooks (like those pesky massive science volumes) online — scrounge for international editions on eBay or just buy them via Amazon’s “new and used ones. For little shits below $20, swallow your pride and patronize the CU store. If it’s between $20 and $80 at the Store, check out Kraftee’s.