A few weeks ago I bought a used Mazda Miata. I’ve been interested in them for a long time — aside from the reputation as a “mid-life crisis car” (Hi Joe!), they are great fun to drive and dead simple to work on. As with most things I take an interest in, the first step was to find some books about Miatas. I already had a factory shop manual, but other Miata owners recommended some additional books that covered basic maintenance and popular modifications for the car. Armed with this information, I headed to work, placed an order, and two days later my new books were in my hands.
All that is a roundabout way of introducing the topic of special orders. We pride ourselves on having the best books on nearly any subject, but of course we can’t carry everything. If there’s a book you have in mind, check with us — we might have it — but even if we don’t, most of the time we can order it for you. You can order in the store or over the phone. You don’t have to pay shipping costs (and most of the time we can get it in 2 business days). You don’t have to pay in advance, before you see the book. And when it arrives, we can gift wrap it or ship it for you.
We’re pretty good at figuring out what book you want, but it makes it really easy if you have the ISBN — that’s the 13-digit number near the bar code, usually beginning with 978. If you don’t know the ISBN, having the exact title and author (with the correct spelling!) is a pretty sure bet. And if you walk in and tell us that the book you’re looking for is blue, rectangular, and about people, we’ll still try our hardest to figure it out.
Sometimes, though, we’ll look up a book and find out that it’s no longer in print, meaning we can’t order new copies from the publisher or our distributors. Fortunately, we’ve got lots of practice looking up used books, too. We try to find nice-condition copies from other bookstores we know, but it’s not uncommon for the order to take a couple of weeks and for the book to have some minor wear. We’ll let you know the condition and price before we order, though, so you will have an idea what to expect.
If there’s a book you’ve been looking for, let us know what information you have about it, and see if we can’t find a copy for you — I bet we can.
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