Back to the Amazon

When I began to revive this blog, I never expected that the most popular entries would be Amazon's butchery of my interests. Still, these are the most viewed, according to Google, so I'll keep doing them. In the near future, I'll throw in Netflix, which makes Amazon look positively brilliant. The latest couple of checks of Amazon recommendations have actually produced far too many bloopers for a single blog entry, so this will be spread out over the next week or so. Since it's the gift that keeps on giving, I can't help but hope that there may be even more goodies waiting.

We'll start out with some self-help books. I'm always trying to lose weight and get into better shape. Having met remote members of my family tree, I know that I resemble the Lithuanian side of my heritage, but I'm about to give it up on blaming genes and simply call it a result of incompetent Intelligent Design:

Just to be sure that I wasn't missing anything, I expanded the list. Nope, this time Amazon has completely wandered off the feedlot and is now meandering at random. I do recommend the Don Norman book as an excellent introduction into product design. It's a fun read.

Sticking with our polka dot theme, it might be interesting to see what young adults are reading these days. I can remember a summer of Herman Hesse when I was thirteen, so almost anything is possible. Having said that, Norwegian branding design was still unexpected.

I better expand this list, too. Just to see what's back there:

A J.K. Rowling short story collection—understandable and certainly more appropriate. One Hundred Years of Solitude and a supporting trivia book? I can dig it. A little sophisticated (says the kid who was reading Hesse at thirteen), but magical realism is a great literary style and after this, the quality of the reader's school essays is bound to improve (although her or his grades may not).

But what's that lurking on the very edge? Virginia Woolf? To the Lighthouse?

I confess to never having read Woolf. Mark it down as one of my many character faults. The problem is that I never felt the need for a primer on how to be an angst-ridden adolescent. I had to read the reviews and the Wikipedia summary to get an idea of what it might be about. At this point, I think that I'll spare any teenagers for whom I might feel the need to buy a book from both Woolf and Hesse. Gabriel García Márquez seems to be a much better choice, or maybe a copy of A Confederacy of Dunces. I'll pass on the Rowling, too. Dandelion Wine and Something Wicked This Way Comes would both be better reads.

Wow. Totally heavy. Let's close this with a couple of my favorite insights on the part of Amazon. First, what I can only presume is an ethical guide to cloning:

Then, when I went back a week later, I found that it had been replaced by an eighteenth century dialogue on the existence of God:

I can only imagine the conversation in the operating room.

"Sarah, do you think that this is a metastasized region or a separate tumor?"

"John, a very small part of this great system, during a very short time, is very imperfectly discovered to us; and do we thence pronounce decisively concerning the origin of the whole?"

"I see your point, but the question is whether we should excise the whole bowel or just this region."

"You alone, or almost alone, disturb this general harmony. You start abstruse doubts, cavils, and objections: You ask me, what is the cause of this cause? I know not; I care not; that concerns not me."

"You know, Sarah, you're right. This guy's a walking corpse anyway. Let's cut the whole thing out, sew him up, and we can still catch half-price appetizers down at TGIFridays."

"But for my part, whenever I find myself disposed to mirth and amusement, I shall certainly choose my entertainment of a less perplexing and abstruse nature. A comedy, a novel, or at most a history, seems a more natural recreation than such metaphysical subtleties and abstractions. Or, barring that, an order of fried green beans and a Long Island iced tea would go down right fine."