Since my sessional teaching appointment has been confirmed for next year, I'm now able to take advantage of a wonderful perk - free books from academic publishers.
Nearly all publishers provide "desk" or "inspection" copies of their books to qualified instructors teaching courses in relevant areas. The idea is that if they send you a free book and you like it, you might then adopt it for your class, and the publisher will sell lots of copies to your students.
Some publishers have cut back on this service in recent years, and will only give you an inspection copy - meaning that if you don't adopt the book for your course within 90 days or so, you have to send the book back to them (in perfect condition). Happily, though, there are still quite a few publishing houses around that will send you a free desk copy, with no requirement that you definitely adopt the book.
Blackwell's is one of the latter, and my very first desk copy arrived today in the post. I got their Companion to Eighteenth-Century Britain, and their Companion to Nineteenth-Century Britain will be sent to me in a couple of weeks (as it's due for release in paperback imminently).
Needless to say, I've ordered a bunch of other titles as well. Routledge are proving rather miserly, but Longman and Penguin have both been quite cooperative. I should be able to put together a decent course reader, at this rate. Which reminds me that I really need to get back to work on that!
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