Book Sale

Ithaca Book Sale

Last weekend was the beginning of the biannual Ithaca book sale. It’s run by volunteers, and usually has upwards of 250,000 books. The prices decrease for each of three consecutive weekends, but they start at $4.50 for a hardback, so I though it would be worth it to go early. Apparently everybody else had the same idea, because it was packed on Saturday morning. I was about ready to leave during my two hour wait in line, but I am glad I didn’t as the selection was pretty amazing. I looked exclusively for computer science books and found a number of gems:

  • Compilers: Principles, Techniques, and Tools (first edition) by Aho, Sethi, and Ullman — The classic “red dragon book” on compilers. This was actually very well timed as I am in the midst of writing the front end of a simple compiler for my research.
  • Introduction to Algorithms (first edition) by Cormen, Leiserson, and Rivest — Along with the compilers text, this is the book I’m likely to get the most use out of. It’s one of the classic works on algorithms, and it is pretty encyclopedic for results up through the eighties. It’s probably not the best for an introductory algorithms course, but it’s great as a reference.
  • Introduction to Automata Theory, Languages, and Computation (first edition) by Hopcroft and Ullman — The “Cinderella book.” This is another classic, and I’ve been told that the first edition is better than subsequent editions.
  • Operating System Concepts (sixth edition) by Silberschatz, Galvin, and Gagne — The “Dinosaur book.”  I think this is the textbook for the Cornell OS class, so I will need it at some point.
  • The C Programming Language (second edition) by Kernighan and Ritchie — I need to brush up on my C/C++, and who better to read than the creators of C themselves. I’ve read part of the first edition but it’s been a while
  • Agile Web Development with Rails by Dave Thomas and David Heinemeier Hansson — Rails is a popular web application framework for the Ruby language. I’m probably unlikely to use it in the near future, but I’m a sucker for web development.
  • GNU Emacs Pocket Reference – I’m also a sucker for Emacs. I know most of the stuff in here, but it never hurts to have a reference.
  • C Pocket Reference – Likewise for C.

Not too bad for $35. I hope to go back at some point and take a look at their fiction.

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