Why I Love Amazon

So one of my favorite things to do is to go book exploring on Amazon. Amazon.com has to be one of the all-time greatest things to ever happen for book lovers. I mean think about it, you look up one book and they provide you with a list that shows other books relating to this one book you looked up, often books that you've never heard of and didn't even know existed. In addition, usually books on Amazon are chock full of reviews, and fairly accurate ones at that (although not always).

And then there's all of the lists created by readers. You can find lists on almost every subject and it is just amazing, because you can get sooooo much information on various books to read. And each book leads automatically to even more books.

One of my favorite things is when one book leads to books on an entirely different subject but one that you actually happen to be passionate about. And then when these books lead to even other books on still other subjects that you are also passionate about (although this time it was also through the public library system). For example, I was doing some research on classical architecture, a subject I am very passionate about.

This led me to a book by a woman named thinking Jane Jacobs, called "The Death and Life of Great American Cities." Now this in itself was a discovery, because urban studies, city and town planning, etc...are all passions of mine, relating to architecture. Anyhow, somehow I had never heard of this woman or her book, but apparently it is about how much of the work of the city planners and social controllers of the "modern architecture" type of mindset had messed up our cities and created more problems than fixed.

Upon looking up this book on Amazon, I then discovered a book called "The Economy of Cities,"  also by Jane Jacobs. Apparently this book is about economic development, basically dealing with how cities influence and are necessary for economic development. Economic development is also a subject I am very interested in, and I see from the Amazon list that apparently Jane Jacobs wrote other books on cities and planning and economic issues as well, so I am very delighted to see that these subjects are combined as they are.

Anyhow, so then I look up the book "The Economy of Cities" in the public library system, and what do I find? A book called "The Company Town: The Industrial Edens and Satanic Mills That Shaped the American Economy." This also occassionally happens, you do a search in the library system for one book, and up pop other books you didn't know about that happen to be in areas you are very interested in.

Now the histories of business, social control and social engineering, towns, cities, etc...I find fascinating. And this book relates right to them. So then I search on Amazon for this book and it leads me to another book, apparently a great work of literature called, "The Pillars of the Earth," which from what I have gleamed so far is a book that takes place in the 12th century about the construction of a cathedral. Well being a lover of architecture and literature, this sounds like a great book.

This book led me to some other books as well, but I mean you can get the picture. What would we do without Amazon!?

The one thing I do NOT like about Amazon is that they are knocking Barnes & Nobles out of business, but unfortunately, that is just due to the nature of the business of selling books.