Jan of Woodbridge sent me this link to an Australian site, Booko, which will be of such help to everyone who buys books online in Australia. Booko gathers all the prices for the book you want, from about 50 online sites, and displays them in order of cost, including delivery, in Australian dollars.
Jan also showed me a book I just have to have, at her place the other day. Just this moment I have looked it up on Booko..... sadly the table does not copy and paste well ... but I can tell you that I can get it for $29.80 or as much as $74.95. It is interesting to see that it is not always the same sites that have the cheaper books.
The book, by the way, is Nigel Slater's very large, beautifully written and illustrated book called Tender volume ll : A cook's guide to the fruit garden. Volume 1 is the vegetable book which I did not get time to look at, at Jan's. Anyway I want the fruit one as there are fruits here in Tasmania I know nothing about. These books are similar in format to Stephanie Alexander's A Cook's Companion. What I love about this style is that it is far more than a recipe or food growing book. It gives you ideas, by saying what goes with each item, and a list of quick and simple uses to give extra zing to an ordinary meal. It is alphabetical, rather than sorted into sweet or savoury, so it is ever so simple to look in the garden, see you have beans mounting up by the ton, rush inside and find something great to do with beans, since you have been eating them non-stop for a month already and need some inspiration!
Lets take beans.... in The Cook's Companion, Stephanie says fresh green beans go with about 20 things, such as: olive oil, chives, pine nuts, almonds, fetta, walnuts, ham, garlic etc etc. Then, in the side bars (oh... is that just an internet term, side bar? Well you will all know what I mean!) there are ideas like beans with fetta and mint, warm bean salad, and a list of bean dressings. Then of course is plenty of information about beans and some more in-depth recipes. All the recipes have even more ideas within them so don't do what I do, and get so enthralled by all the wonderful information and mouth-watering ideas that before you know it, its dark and too late to get started!
So, check out these books and more on Booko. Where would we be without the internet?
5 comments:
Booko seems great and I hope it comes to the UK. More generally I think the online used book shops in the UK are fantastic. I recently bought a good-as-new used book for £2 including postage -- that's got to be good for the environment as well as my wallet!
This is a great site when, when will it be available for the USA?
I think it would generate a llot of business I'm going to link it to my sight if you don't mind
www.myebookstand.com
Michael, please do and then maybe someone will run with it for the USA too.
I just hope booko becomes everythingo !! So whatever you want to buy online, you can get a price comparison for the same product.
I am not in support of cheap copies and I totally support local businesses and this can help them too, to become more competitive.
I did a search for the Transition Handbook by Rob Hopkins. It says something about book retailing in this country when the cheapest local copy ($32.95) is close to double the price of an imported copy ($17.95) (prices include delivery)! Under those circumstances it is a big ask to support local traders.
Try http://google.com/products -- it's like booko for every kind of thing you could buy, but not as comprehensive as booko.
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