Amazon amuses

Amazon.com emails me:

Andrew M Greene,

As someone who has purchased or rated books by David A. Karp, you might like to know that "Is It Me or My Meds?: Living with Antidepressants" will be released on October 15, 2007.

Huh? Oh... I apparently bought Windows Annoyances on December 4, 1998.

And I guess the idea is that anyone who is still stuck using Windows nine years later has presumably moved on past seeking help from O'Reilly books and gone on to serious antidepressants?

Amazon amuses

Amazon.com emails me:

Andrew M Greene,

As someone who has purchased or rated books by David A. Karp, you might like to know that "Is It Me or My Meds?: Living with Antidepressants" will be released on October 15, 2007.

Huh? Oh... I apparently bought Windows Annoyances on December 4, 1998.

And I guess the idea is that anyone who is still stuck using Windows nine years later has presumably moved on past seeking help from O'Reilly books and gone on to serious antidepressants?

"The Invention of Hugo Cabret"

Over Yom Tov, I saw a kid at shul reading The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick (Scholastic, 2007). It looked interesting, so I took it out of the library.

This is a truly wonderous book. By turns, it literally made me cry, gasp, and sit dumbstruck in slack-jawed amazement. Seeds subtly planted on early pages bear fruit later on, and I kept finding myself turning back to retrace their development. The concept behind the book is breathtakingly audacious; the execution is astounding.

To say anything else -- about the plot, about what makes the concept so ambitious, about the techniques that make this book unique -- would be a spoiler. All I'll say is this: As soon as you're done reading Winston Breen, get your hands on Hugo Cabret. I'm planning to buy my copy this weekend.

"The Invention of Hugo Cabret"

Over Yom Tov, I saw a kid at shul reading The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick (Scholastic, 2007). It looked interesting, so I took it out of the library.

This is a truly wonderous book. By turns, it literally made me cry, gasp, and sit dumbstruck in slack-jawed amazement. Seeds subtly planted on early pages bear fruit later on, and I kept finding myself turning back to retrace their development. The concept behind the book is breathtakingly audacious; the execution is astounding.

To say anything else -- about the plot, about what makes the concept so ambitious, about the techniques that make this book unique -- would be a spoiler. All I'll say is this: As soon as you're done reading Winston Breen, get your hands on Hugo Cabret. I'm planning to buy my copy this weekend.