Choice

You may say the fall of Borders and other conventional bookstores is the inevitable consequence in the era of on-line shopping.

Quite true. In fact, I just bought my new edition of Harrison's from Amazon two weeks ago.

And the process was plain sailing! Fast, simple, and quiet - I didn't have to talk to anybody. (Think of that for someone with an autistic personality disorder like me.) More, there are literally millions of books for you to choose, hundreds of times more than that you could find from any brick-and-mortar shop.

But, I tell you, this is the worrying bit.

For, with that seemingly vast number of choice (and without physically displaying them in front of you), the list for our consideration is, ironically, more limited.

Take my recent purchase as an example, I did not look around and find a book - I knew what I wished to buy right from the start. If there's actually another good one around, I would never know it, and, if that were the situation 25 years ago, my initial romantic encounter with Tinsley Harrison would never happen. (For that story, see http://ccszeto.blogspot.com/2008/04/harrison.html)

And, even if you have no particular book in mind and go to, say, Amazon for on-line "shopping", as their old customer, a number of titles would be automatically recommended - largely based on what you bought previously. Yes, it is very much more convenient. Nonetheless, it also means we are channeled to our own small world.