Amazon
Those who know me will know that I am somewhat opposed to amazon.com. At a time when thousands of small bookshops around the world are struggling to stay afloat, the last thing the literate world needs is a supercentralised book depository to drive a lot of them out of business. And it’s anti-union, too. But my dislike of Amazon was tempered ever-so-slightly earlier today for a brief, shining moment when my friend Richard sent me this magnificent link.
Congratulations, Todd B. Vick, M.A, for this valuable store of opinions on the current crop of Thomist secondary literature. Just bear in mind, though, that if you want to stock up on commentaries on Aquinas and other Doctors of the Church, you might want to buy them in cheaper second-hand editions from the helpful people at abebooks.com.
Richard wrote [21.9.01]: Yes, I too have no great time for Amazon, especially as it is ferociously anti-union. In fact, I think a boycott of Amazon is called for. You might like this link. As well as the magnificent ABEbooks.com - I’m a very regular user - you might like to highlight Best Books Buys, which is also excellent and shows that Amazon is rarely the cheapest possibility.
P.S. I’m still having trouble reading the weblog - does it not like Netscape?
Chris replies [21.9.01]: Apparently not: I hadn’t noticed this before. Anyone got any idea why - or whether there’s a solution?
Todd writes [21.9.01]: I shop Abebooks all the time. In fact, almost twice as much as Amazon. I’m not sure of the intent of this e-mail, as odd as it seems to me, but if you have less expensive resource places where I can but materials such as Thomistic works, then I’m all ears. I make frequent trips to Chicago, Ill. and Madison, WI., to shop as the local used bookstores - the used gems are always found at these places! Any suggestions let me know. I ALWAYS buy used before I buy new (albeit the condition is right).
P.S. if you go here you will see that I have a link to ABE. Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam.
Nick wrote [23.9.01]: Here’s an easy link to remember: www.noamazon.com. This one was set up to protest Amazon’s jiggery-pokery with US patent law (IIRC, they claimed they’d invented e-commerce and nobody else should be allowed to sell things over the Internet), which is possibly yet another reason to dislike them.