Abebooks just shows you the shipping price set by the vendor, and you can sort your search findings by Total Price--so you see the price of the book WITH the shipping (which you can set to "Canadian.") You can almost always find the lowest price for the book on abe.
The second hand shops are worth a look, because I really common book will often sell for about $1 so you're mostly paying shipping. A random search pulls up Pillars of the Earth for $3, free shipping. Room by Emma Donoghue for $1 + $6 shipping.
Anyway, just something to remember. :-) I'm currently awaiting three second-hand purchases, research for my book--for my heroine's great-grandmother's part of the story, which takes place around 1918.
A book written by someone who was a child living in Hollywood when it was starting out--which is the setting for an important part of Genie's story:
And since I have an African-American lead character in that 1918 setting--this book about the Pullman porters, who were mostly black. Being a porter was considered a good job, was a big part of the formation of an African-American middle class (these guys could send their kids to university etc.), and its union is generally recognized as one of the early pillars of the 1960s civil disobedience. These are first hand stories, which I prefer if I'm trying to get a *feel* for something, rather than just a history.
And Langston Hughe's early-life autobiography, covering the time period of my story (he's the same age as my main characters.) The main difficulty of course is a regional one--Hughes' grew up in the midwest, and then was in Harlem and Mexico and Paris, whereas my book is mostly in San Francisco. But better than nothing, and will probably be an interesting read in and of itself.
