T-61.6020: Getting the book 2007

The course follows the book
Christopher M. Bishop. Pattern Recognition and Machine Learning. Springer, 2006. ISBN 0387310738.

The book is available in several copies from the HUT library.

Some quotations (book available for shipping in couple of days and excange rates as of 15 January 2007):

Amazon.com - USD 53.96 (EUR 41.70); shipping USD 4.49 (EUR 3.47) per order plus USD 4.49 (EUR 3.47) per book (9-36 business days, standard international shipping); or USD 7.49 (EUR 4.79) per order plus USD 5.49 (EUR 4.24) per book (6-22 business days, expedited international shipping); or USD 29.99 (EUR 23.17) per order plus USD 5.99 (EUR 4.63) per book (2-4 business days, priority international courier).
Springer - GBP 46.00 (EUR 69.86)
Amazon.fr - EUR 60.81
Amazon.de - EUR 57.95; shipping EUR 6.00 per order (7-21 business days).

If you buy a book from outside the EU you may have to pay an additional tax. The tax is apparently computed as follows: take the total price of your order, including shipment and handling. Call this x. Then add the import tax, which is usually about 3.5%, but 0% for books. Then add the VAT, which is 8% for books. Now, the total price (price+import tax+VAT) becomes 1.08*x. However, if the customs fee (0.08*x) does not exceed 10 euros, it won't be charged. In other words, if your total order is under 125 euros (x<125), you don't have to pay taxes. (I think.)

It appears that currently (15 January 2007) the cheapest way to get the books is to order them from Amazon.com two books at the time. This way you avoid the taxes and get the books for approximately 48.34 euros per copy (delivery in 6-22 business days, expedited international shipping). A single book would cost a few euros more, or about 50.73 euros.