Textbooks—Huge, Expensive, and Out of Print

[pws]

I'm looking into buying the textbooks I need for the TESU Non-Western Lit. course, and two BYU-IS courses.

First, for the TESU Non-Western Lit. course, we are expected to buy The Norton Anthology of World Literature, volumes A, B, C, D, E and F (two box sets). Each volume is around 1000-1500 pages—making this approximately 7500 pages of text. What the heck?

For the two BYU-IS courses, most of the books are fine. There's just one book though, that's out of print. I found a few used copies in only two places online, however, it makes you wonder, why do they expect you to buy a book if it's out of print?

On a more serious note:

• For most course books, are they completely required, or some are more-or-so optional?
  
• Are there workarounds? Any suggestions?
  

[MNomadic]

Try world cat:
https://www.worldcat.org/
You may find that a book you need is at a library near you!
Amazon may be a good place to look for books to buy or rent(I rented one of my textbooks from them for way less than the TESU book store).