As an example I thought we’d take a look at books that are seen as useful towards an A level (or A/S Level) English Literature qualification. These aren’t the universal reading list (we haven’t managed to get a definitive list – if you’re a teacher who can help and wants their students to buy their books as cheaply as possible then get in touch – we’d love to hear from you).

For coursework (we’re going back a few years here!) we bought a lot of secondhand books, both from previous students and great booksellers who sold new and used versions of books. We want Ewelike to help and give you a choice between hardback & paperback and new & used.

The English Reading List seems heavily stacked towards well regarded modern and classic fiction. Here’s a small selection and we’ll try and expand it later on.

• John Clare – Selected Poems
• David Powell’s Major Works Book – Recommended for enhancing a student’s knowledge of John Clare
• William Wordworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge – Lyrical Ballads: With a Few Other Poems New Edition
• William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge – Lyrical Ballads: With a Few Other Poems Penguin edition – available secondhand only
• Shelley (Percy Bysshe) Selected Poems – Ode to the Westwind and more poems
• Expanded set of Shelley Poems – Poetry and Prose Book – may be useful for additional reading
• David Pirie’s Open University Guide to Shelley may be of use for context
• Paul Foot’s Shelley Biography for background reading

A fair number of people have contacted us to find out how we did it – how did we find the recommended texts using Ewelike and how can they be sure that Ewelike is showing them exactly the recommended book (and not a different edition or poor substitute with the same name).

I’ll get on to why afterwards but the trick is the ISBN number – For an example let’s take the A-Level English Literature Syllabus from AQA (see http://store.aqa.org.uk/qual/pdf/AQA-6741-UNIT4-SETTEXT08.PDF).

With there you’ll see books listed and their ISBN numbers. Ewelike knows all about ISBN numbers so you can search for them directly.

Let’s take an example. The text in the PDF says

”
Shelley’s Revolutionary Year, introduction by Paul Foot, Redwords, 1990. ISBN 1872208002
”

First grab the ISBN – 1872208002 – now paste that into the search bar in Ewelike and hit “search”.

Hey presto, Ewelike finds the book, and if you click on the product (you can check the names) then you’ll see the product page and we’ll start looking for the best prices we can find.

Just incase you’re paranoid we show the ISBN on the product page so you can cross-check that this is EXACTLY the book you’re looking for.

If you’ll be doing this a lot then we’d recommend following the advice we gave in a previous blog post – Lazy Searching: No Typing – how to find the best price for books and products without typing.

NOTE: I mentioned earlier that we always match on EXACTLY the item that you asked for. Ewelike is pretty much unique because it only tries to match like-for-like, we don’t give substitutes and we’re transparent about what you’re buying (we even show the barcode / ISBN so you can be doubly sure). Also we don’t limit ourselves to things that we get paid for, instead if it’s cheaper elsewhere (or only available elsewhere) then we’ll show you that price so you get the best deal you can.