the last book you'll ever need

[sam]

Most statements about a book are not about the book itself, despite appearances, but about the larger set of books on which our culture depends at that moment. It is that set, which I shall henceforth refer to as the collective library, that truly matters, since it is our mastery of this collective library that is at stake in all discussions about books. But this mastery is a command of relations, not of any book in isolation, and it easily accommodates ignorance of a large part of the whole.

It can be argued, then, that a book stops being unknown as soon as it enters our perceptual field, and that to know almost nothing about it should be no obstacle to imagining or discussing it. To a cultivated or curious person, even the slightest glance at a book's title or cover calls up a series of images and impressions quick to coalesce into an initial opinion, facilitated by the whole set of books represented in the culture at large. For the non-reader, therefore, even the most fleeting encounter with a book may be the beginning of an authentic personal appropriation, and any unknown book we come across becomes a known book in that instant.

[sam]

WHSmith does its part to facilitate initial opinions

[sam]

...is yours for £1 if you browse long enough at this stall

[sam]

I worked in various bookstores back in the late 80s, including the grand old Scribners on 5th Ave in New York, magnet to Hemmingway, Patti Smith (my degree of separation from Patti: we both worked with Faith Cross), and Bob Dylan, who I almost bumped into while carrying a stack of The Bonfire of the Vanities.

Most of those stores have since closed, victims of high rents and low profit margins. Scribners is now a Sephora. At least they also take browsing seriously.

Today I popped into Forbidden Planet, that merger of sf and Hamleys. Dan Simmons's Carrion Comfort looked good; I'd enjoyed his reimagining of the Franklin expedition in The Terror. Unfortunately I couldn't fit it into my already full backpack. And so to Amazon, where a new copy was about half price, delivered, thus further reinforcing its place as the bookstorage which tends to get my money. Why do you do this to me Amazon?


PS. If Scribners was still around it would belong on this list.

[sam]

Amazon’s $23,698,655.93 book about flies



I have no idea why the fly is on the bike, or who took the picture, but well done to both.

from The Price of Everything:
The internet is likely to bring price discrimination into every corner of our lives. In September of 2000, Amazon.com was caught offering the same DVDs to different customers at discounts of 30 percent, 35 percent, or 40 percent off the manufacturer's suggested retail price. Amazon said the differential pricing was due to a random price test. It denied that it was segregating customers according to their sensitivity to price, which could be gleaned from their shopping histories recorded on their Amazon profiles. But ever since the incident, consumer advocates have warned that the reams of personal information that people give away when they search, shop, and play on social networking sites online will allow companies to finely tune their prices to fit the profiles of each customer. The less price sensitive, for instance, would be offered pricier versions of articles at the top of a search list. Bargain hunters could be presented with cheaper alternatives first.