UP THE AMAZON

Is Amazon.com in trouble? Some analysts think so. “Can you really imagine a world without Amazon? No purchase circles, an Amazon invention where you can learn that folks in Shepherdstown are reading ‘Magical Mushrooms, Mischievous Molds’ and readers in Upper Marlboro prefer ‘A Setback Is a Setup for a Comeback’? What would life be like for obsessive authors without hourly updates on bestseller lists? And collaborative filtering software telling us that customers who ordered ‘Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire’ are also clamoring for Seamus Heaney’s translation of ‘Beowulf’?” – Washington Post