My 2.5 Star Trip to Amazon's New Bookstore | Hacker News Reader

My 2.5 Star Trip to Amazon's New Bookstore

newrepublic.com

41 pointsandyjohnson027 comments

Article is trying too hard to be clever by half.

  I did not use the phrase Day One, but wondered whether the 
  staff, including presumably Walkie Talkie, had taken a 
  moment before opening that morning to reflect on Amazon’s 
  jargon, including that bit of eschatology.

  There is a desk labelled Amazon Answers. Presumably the 
  questions asked of Amazon are answered by a human employee
  of the store, though it’s unclear if some sort of Delphic 
  process involving candles and chanting occurs.

  Books are not always arranged in a clear manner. On the 
  memoir wall Frederick Douglass abuts Anne Frank, herself 
  next to Ben Carson. Amazon is disrupting the alphabet. 
  RIP, alphabet.

The style bothered me as well, I could not tell if the was unconsciously projecting all of their internal conflict into the situation or if they were trying to write at a snark level that would be above the comprehension of some but not all readers. Either way it seemed the author was conflicted deeply about what they were trying to write (or perhaps not write)

The style reminded me a lot of the writing style of Fight Club: lots of anti-establishment bitterness seeping through observations of comical ironies. Probably also a reflection of the conflict between corporate Amazon and the cool kids who want to keep Seattle cool.

According to his byline, the author is from Portland. I think that explains a lot of it, actually.

It's super smarmy, but pretty much par for the course for how TNR and other bastions of American literary tradition treat Amazon. They published an op-ed arguing that ordinary readers (as opposed to trained book reviewers) shouldn't be reviewing books.[0]

[0] http://www.newrepublic.com/article/119875/margo-howard-amazo...

I am so glad I am not the only one to think that. I was rolling my eyes through the whole thing and I only skimmed through it.

I can't help but feel that the entire article is filled to the brim with bitterness. There's no objectivity to it and, instead of coming away with some negative opinion of Amazon's new store, I feel like I'm coming away with a negative view of the author and a willingness to give Amazon's store a shot.

I think there's plenty to criticize about Amazon Books, but this review misses the mark. Three stars.

1. The shopping mall is named University Village due to its proximity to the University of Washington.

2. This is how emails from recruiters on LinkedIn always work. There's nothing new here.

    Cady received LinkedIn messages and an email.
    It was very personal in tone, but ended with
    a simple choice: a button to indicate whether
    or not she was interested in the offer. “I
    clicked not interested.”

3. It seems absolutely bizarre to me that this article fails to mention, even once, Seattle's best independent book store: Elliot Bay Book Company (http://www.elliottbaybook.com)

4. Also missed two other Starbucks in University Village, including one of the busiest in the world.

Also, the seattle area's other awesome independent bookstore, Third Place Books.

What a pompous, ridiculous article. I feel like the author was smelling his or her own farts the entire time they were writing this

"Here's a 0.5 star review on my 2.5 star trip to Amazon's New Bookstore"

I went there the day they opened and was blown away. 10x better than any bookstore I've ever been in before. I loved it.

Better than Powell's City of Books in portland?

http://www.powells.com/locations/powells-city-of-books

I'd find that hard to believe.

+1 this. Highly recommended to check ow Powell's if ever you find yourself in Portland.

Strange. I went yesterday (had to do something while I waited for dumplings) and thought it was just an ordinary bookstore. What grabbed you so much that I missed?

I love this comment. I wanna see Bezos' face when he learns his fancy new store is just a mundane place to kill time while waiting for dumplings.

How is it better?

Better than the University bookstore?

Read this article instead

http://publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/bookse...

It's more informative and less bitter.

Hmmm I just assumed that the bookstore was a book-store wrapper around Amazon Lockers. The proximity to U-village denizens would make it a good place to put some.

The area where people live (closer to 45th, on the other side of the UW campus) has quite a few Amazon Lockers.

Besides, its down the hill from that. Not a great place to be lugging packages up high grade side streets.

I appreciate the fact that the giant sign is on a literal brick & mortar wall.

I've been offline for a few days so... WTF? What's the reason for Amazon opening a brick and mortar? Tax avoidance? legal loopholes? I'm really puzzled..

Your tone got you downvoted, but I'm also interested in Amazon's motivation for opening this store.

If I had to put money down I'd say there are two motivations. First it's pure marketing. There are Apple and Microsoft stores in the same shopping center. Amazon is promoting its brand.

Second, perhaps more far-fetched and to me more interesting, it's a long play by a company famous for long plays. Amazon has predicted a future where they put most brick and mortar bookstores out of business, and recognized this future is not good if you want to sell books.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com