Happy Birthday, Amazon.com: You've Come a Long Way, Baby!

Mundane Pointless Stuff I Must Share (MPSIMS)
#1

Amazon.com is celebrating its 10th birthday [for 10 days] this month, and are hosting a bunch of neat things, such as Celebrity Deliveries [watch the Lemony Snicket one in particular], a streaming concert of Bob Dylan and Norah Jones, and the Hall of Fame of its bestselling authors [King fans take note: exclusive excerpt from his work-in-progress].

Happy birthday to my favorite retailer and my former employer, which started as the little dream of one guy and a piece of software written on a laptop in the backseat of a car during a cross-country trip to Seattle.

Here’s to countless more books ordered, albums launched, departments opened, and packages delivered.

#2

Happy birthday, indeed!

I’m presently helping to build a library for a Bible college in Asia, and through Amazon.com I’ve been able to locate so many out of print titles that are needed for our collection, at good prices too. I’ve ordered over 1,000 books from or through them, with great results.

I can’t imagine how it would be like to try to do this before internet and Amazon. They’ve helped to make the world a smaller place and bring the wonder of the world of books to far-flung places.

#3

Amen. Some of my prized posessions are out-of-print books I’ve gotten from Amazon, at great prices and in great condition. My latest prize: both volumes of Yigael Yadin’s The Art of Warfare in Biblical Lands in the Light of Archaeological Study, 1963. I’ve been waiting to read this for 20 years. All copies in local libraries are missing, presumed lost!