A Good Honest Book

One of the few perks of being a college instructor is the free textbooks. If I like a book, I just email the publisher, tell them what class I’m teaching, and a couple days later it’s sitting on my doorstep. They usually don’t ask how a book on theoretical physics or the history of salt applies to freshman composition. But when they do, I fire my fancy words at them like synecdoche and terministic screen and then tell them, “I really don’t know how I can put this in a way that you would understand.”

I’ve been somewhat liberal in my acquisition of textbooks over the years. Our basement is full of boxes of books that I’ve never read and never will read, but the covers are so pretty, and the only thing harder for me to get rid of than a book is a FREE book.

One fateful morning last year it occurred to me that ordering books that I had no intention of using for teaching was dishonest. Maybe even a form of stealing. I remembered a sign in a music store that said, “Want Lower Prices? Tell Your Friends to Stop Shoplifting.” I was ashamed to think I might be the reason textbooks were so expensive for students. If only I could break my free-textbook addiction, my students might not have to shell out seventy-eight bucks for a copy of Huck Finn and could use their money, instead, to buy printers that didn’t break every time an assignment was due.

So I vowed to not be dishonest anymore with book publishers. If I wasn’t actually teaching from the book, I wouldn’t request it.

I started a graduate seminar this week, and my teacher flashed a book in front of me with earthy-green covers called The Norton Book of Composition Studies.

I had to have it. Not only because it was required for the class, but because it would look so nice on my bookshelf. But it cost fifty bucks, even in paperback.

Seeing my despair, one of my classmates slid a piece of paper to me. “Call this number,” she whispered. It was a number for Norton, who are notorious for denying free textbook requests—they know the difference between a professor and a cheap grad student. “This isn’t the normal book rep,” she said. “She’s an old lady that fills book orders. She won’t give you any problems.”

I’d like to say there was an inner struggle where I debated endlessly about whether I should call the number or just do the right thing and buy the book, but I knew as soon as she gave me the number that I couldn’t go through with it. I’m just not that guy anymore. So I threw the number away and decided to buy the book the old-fashioned way: with a credit card at Barnesandnoble.com.

Before hitting the Proceed-to-Checkout button and parting with fifty dollars, I decided to try one last thing I hadn't thought of before: being honest with the book seller.

I sent my local book rep an email and told her that I wasn’t going to lie: I’m a grad student and I’m not teaching with the book and probably never will, but I really, really want a free copy.

Today she sent me an email thanking me for my honesty and said my free copy is in the mail.

I love being rewarded for my honesty. I feel like I’m in third grade again! Now if I could just find a juice box and someone willing to read to me.