The major bookshop in Bradford is Waterstone's. You will find them in the Wool Exchange on Hustlergate in the city centre. They also have shops on the main campus and at the Management Centre. Their contact information:
Waterstone's Booksellers
City centre: The Wool Exchange, Hustlergate, Bradford, BD1, Tel: (01274) 723127
Main campus: Great Horton Road, Bradford, BD7, Tel: (01274) 727885
Management Centre: Emm Lane, Bradford, BD9, Tel: (01274) 481404
Web site:http://www.waterstones.co.uk
For more (academic and business) books, you probably need to go to Leeds or Manchester. You will find larger Waterstone's bookstores in both cities, and they carry more titles in stock.
In my (Ron's) experience, books are expensive in England. It's not uncommon to see pound prices that are numerically almost equal to US dollar prices, which means that they are effectively 40-60% more expensive than their US counterparts — for the same book!
The best way that I have found to get better value for money, is to go to online bookshops. Most major UK shops have some online presence and ordering, but those are not worth your while. Typically, they charge (almost) the regular cover price, plus some shipping & handling.
What I normally do is the following. I start by going to the Book
Brain, an online service that searches UK online book stores for a title
or author that you enter. It will list prices for that title and include links
to the corresponding online bookstore.
Next, I always end up with Amazon
(UK) (so nowadays, I don't even bother checking the Book Brain any more).
They usually beat the other bookstores by a comfortable margin (20% or more).
Also, they are un-British in their speed and efficiency; more often than not,
I receive the book of my choice the next morning. To illustrate, here are the
last 3 books that I bought online (in February and March 2000):
In all cases, the price was less (often considerably so) than in a normal bookstore, and delivery was very quick, particularly when compared with the vagaries of ordering books in a regular bookshop. And of course, if you order several books at the same time, the shipping costs per book go down as well — ordering just one book at a time as I did is relatively expensive (yet still cheaper than in a shop).
Chains such as W.H. Smith (in the city centre) also carry some book titles,
although they tend to be more oriented towards the general public. Still, if
you are looking for local guides, maps, or just an easy read, they might have
what you need. W.H. Smith's web site: http://www.whsmith.co.uk
Finally, there is the library. Bradford Council maintains a Central Library in the city centre. It has several branches (among others, in Manningham and in Shipley) and membership is free. Book loans are also free, but you have to pay for other media: CDs (60p per CD per week), videos (varies; typically £1.50 per video per week). To join as a student you have to provide proof of both your current address and your home address. Their contact information:
Bradford Central Library
Prince's Way
Bradford, BD1 1NN
Tel: (01274) 753600
Web site:
Email: public.libraries@bradford.gov.uk
 |
|
 |
Copyright © 1999-2000 Anne-Wil Harzing
and Ron van der Wal. All rights reserved.
Legal notices and colophon. This page was last modified on 7-11-99 19:03 |