Ah that makes more sense now. Confusing cross cultural slang. It was shocking to see how little the expensive version the author passed up was.

Especially considering how poor the knock-off Indian domestic reprints are. Everything is smudgy and looks like it was printed on newsprint (either standard or glossy -- it varies), without trimmed edges and with a horrifically bad binding.

IMO, while it's nice to own a copy of a book that looks good and doesn't fall apart, the awful thing here is not the cosmetics but the fact that the copy is a mangled-up version with errors that have been fixed in editions over a decade ago.

You need to be able to trust a book. I received a misprint of a book I ordered online once, duplicate pages, missed half a chapter. I didn't need that particular chapter for the course I was taking then, and it was a week before the exam so I didn't send it back, it's a really cool book (Computational Geometry) that, like other interesting study books, I would pick up again and browse occasionally, if it weren't for this mess up. It's a shame, really.

Yes. And since most books usually bought are Indian editions, we rarely realize how great the original editions can be.