Different books, same ISBN 13

[Sarah]

Well I was creating a new edition of the book Cherry by Mary Karr (the one I just linked is the one I created, I bought this edition yesterday) and when it came to the ISBN 13, it was already taken by another book Isshinryu Kusanku Kata Secrets Revealed and a quick google search gave me both books. The ISBN 13 in question is 9780965008518

I suppose it probably doesn't matter that much as I was able to use the ISBN 10 to create the edition, but I like to be complete when I create it. I've never come across that before.. I thought all books were supposed to be different?

[Jessica]

I would just put a note in the description giving the ISBN 13 and that it shares the same as another book. They do occasionally get reused.

[Sarah]

Thanks, I did that.

[ambyr]

This is particularly weird because any books that share the same ISBN-13 should also share the same ISBN-10; there's a simple, numerical process to convert from one to the other (http://www.isbn.org/converterpub.asp). The ISBN-10 you're using for Cherry (0965008510) is not a valid ISBN number; it fails the checksum test (http://www.isbn-check.com/).

Are you sure you typed it in right? Not that it's not perfectly possible that it's printed wrong on the book itself, of course.

[Sarah]

That's odd. I can take a picture of the book if it's necessary...

[Beth]

No, the isbn 10 is correct, at least as printed on the book; if you plug it into google, you'll get results from bookwidget, bookcrossing, and more, identifying it as Cherry.