Monday, July 12, 2010
An Announcement of Arrival
Today, the Kindle, a protective cover, and a cute little reading light that slips right inside the cover arrived. Of course, the light needs a battery and all the batteries I own are the wrong size. The instructions for all three items were written concisely in comprehensible prose. I only had to call Amazon once. I couldn't figure out how to buy a book, but a woman in the Kindle Department led me through the basic, exceptionally simple process. I bought the book, a collection of fairy tales from East India, for $0.00, and Amazon thanked me for my purchase. Isn't that impressive? Instead of being thanked when I buy books, I usually hear "Next." Then the person, probably a polite person in non-book-buying situations, steps forward and takes over my place at the cashier's counter. Juggling my packages of books, I head for the revolving doors and revolve. Amazon thanked me again when I bought a book I need for a book club. This time I had to use some hard, unearned Social Security cash. Tonight, I will read as much of that pricey tome as I can because I'm behind. You can make book on that.
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Old Baguette, you are making feel bad about buying the book club selection with hard unearned SS funds. I have a feeling you may not feel that it was money well spent. Unfortunately, our club has been picking more of the thriller types than the literature types here lately.
ReplyDeleteSo how do you like the Kindle? I hope from the bottom of my heart you love it.
Old Baguette, you have owned your Kindle now almost a week. How do you like it?
ReplyDeleteI re-read your comments on being thanked by Amazon verses the book store "next". Amazon is a wonderful company with excellent customer service. I have dealt with them for a decade and have never had a complaint. But also don't forget that they are a company.
You are being thanked by computer, not by a human being. The computer doesn't have a headache, is not frightened by that lump, doesn't need a cigarette and a cup of coffee, has no teens at home causing concerns, is not getting divorced, is not faced with a $1000 repair on a car that should be retired, and is not making minimum wage and hearing rumors of cutbacks....
Barnes & Noble and Borders have the equivalent to Amazon's cheery thank you written on the receipt.
In some ways Amazon bothers me, much in the same way that Border's at one time bothered me or that Walmart bothers me.
There was a cover on a New Yorker within the past couple of years. A man is unlocking the door to his book shop and a woman who lives in the apartment above is receiving an Amazon package from UPS. The man and woman are caught in one of those moments...the expression on the woman's face is priceless.
Here it is, and truly great it is a M-Edge Cover for the Kindle. I may have to buy one!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/meghansgallery/4207133092/
Must the small die out and the large survive? Like the American family farm and agri-corporations. I remember the small hardware stores when I was a kid. They had everything that you would expect from a hardware store, and there was some guy or often gal who knew where everything was, could sell you one of something, and tell you how to properly do the job. But now we go to Lowes or Home Depot, walk through acres and acres of things we are not interested in, find that the thing we want (if they have it) comes in a package of 25, and the person you ask for advice doesn't have a clue.
So must the little book shop evolve to Border's which evolves to Amazon which evolves to a Kindle. I love the convenience and the speed...60 seconds and you own the book. Hmmmm, but are we losing something? Perhaps we already lost it at Borders.
Instead, of Mary--long time proprietor of Mary's Old Tyme Book Shoppe saying "Thanks for stopping by Mrs. Jones and tell Mr. Jones that I am glad he is feeling better." we hear an impersonal albeit efficient "next".
Not to beat a dead horse here, but I searched the M-Edge website and Amazon for the cover discussed above. It is not available any longer, yet there are 5 other New Yorker covers available in the same type of jacket. Why not this one?
ReplyDeleteDid Amazon ask M-Edge to quash it?
Were sales of this particular cover poor and M-Edge quit production on it?
Is there perhaps an uncomfortable truth being expressed in the cover, that most people do not want to deal with?