Statistically Improbable Phrases: the term sounds like a highfalutin’ way of describing nonsense prose, but in reality, it’s an innovative new feature of Amazon.com’s search utility. The SIP utility “compares the text of hundreds of thousands of books to reveal an author’s signature constructions,” and is only one of several new options available for prejudging literature. “Customers can also see how complicated the writing is (yes, post-structuralist Michel Foucault’s prose is foggier than Immanuel Kant’s), and how much education you need to understand a book. (To understand French philosopher Pierre Bourdieu, you’ll need a second Ph.D.)”