Textbooks: the prices really are crazy!

Hmmmm. 300 pages. $56. Textbooks: I just don't get it. How can they really get away with prices like that? The cheapest possible option is Kindle for $16.32 ... but that is on the other side of my $9.99 default limit on how much I'm prepared to pay for a book I don't really even own. So, I'll be doing this course without the textbook. :-)