I received a hard back book today from Elizabeth Brown Books and Collectibles in San Diego, CA. She is a member of the www.abebooks.com group of independent seller. I mention her because the book I got today was in pristine condition and packed extremely professionally. You may ask, "why is that unusual?" If you ask that, you probably don't buy a lot of books online. I buy a lot of books, I generally buy them from either abebooks.com or half.com. I attempt to avoid the usury shipping charges by going over the complete inventory of a seller after I find the book I am looking to buy. Generally the 2nd and ensuing books are less expensive to ship than the first. When you buy a book for a dollar, you usually end up paying a couple of bucks for shipping which is a not so sneaky way of getting more money out of you since media mail is never as expensive as what is charged. But I digress, reasonably priced books are to be had at either site. What is unusu...