There's been a bit of a stir around reclusive New York author Thomas Pynchon's latest novel. Slate reports that someone, very possibly Pynchon himself, posted a brief blurb for his forthcoming novel on the book's Amazon page. Amazon quickly pulled the page, but that didn't stop the legion of Internet-savvy supernerds who make up the core of his fanbase from engaging in an orgy of speculation as to what it all meant. Well, we've been able to locate a screen cap of the page itself:

It's a bird! It's a plane! It's Sergey Brin!

Hoo boy. It was one thing to see the return of Pets.com. Then came Flooz 2.0. But all joking aside, Amazon's resurrection of the Webvan business model should scare the bejeezus out of us all.

Tim O'Reilly says the ODP jumped the gun with its Amazon 1-click gotcha, which accused O'Reilly of doubletalk about fighting Amazon's controversial patent. The tech publisher e-mails in his response:

A correspondent informs us of breaking news regarding AMI editorial director Bonnie Fuller's forthcoming book, to be released April 11:

Rakesh Mathur is back in town. The Junglee co-founder sold to Amazon in '98 after doing the "Let's buy Google, oops, let's merge with Google" circuit (just like Kosmix).

No matter what you do, say, or write about, you can't escape the glittery glove of the past.

When buying on Amazon.com, it's interesting to see what other shoppers bought along with your item of choice. It would seem that users who inexplicably purchased Star Jones Reynolds' life-and-love book Shine also bought the tearjerker memoir written by the mother of murder victim Laci Peterson, a pairing so frequent that it has prompted Amazon to market a package deal.

Today's Times has a piece about Amazon Connect, which allows authors to blog on their Amazon.com retail pages. Meg Wolitzer is prominently featured as an author utilizing her Amazon blog — she serves as the story's lede and primary example, plus there's a nice photograph.

As of 11 A.M.

We are SO PROUD OF YOU ALL! In just two hours, your passive-aggressive inaction has helped to knock Lauren Weisberger's sophomore effort, Everyone Worth Knowing, down one notch in the Amazon.com sales rankings, plummeting from #232 to #233. Bravo! Now stay strong, our little salvation army, and we just might see her at #235 in time for happy hour.

Yesterday afternoon, we had hope:

The New Yorker's Nick Paumgarten profiles Francis McInerney, a "top reviewer" at Amazon whose name can be found in the acknowledgements of The Da Vinci Code, a surprise NYT bestseller. McInerney has done over 800 reviews. (Alas, no James Frey; no Devil Wears Prada.) It appears to be a competitive hobby: "other reviewers sometimes create multiple e-mail accounts and repeatedly vote 'not helpful' on his reviews in an attempt to catch up with him. 'As soon as Amazon started ranking people, everything in human nature that�s associated with being competitive came out,' [McInerney] said."

Acknowledged [New Yorker]

Amazon's New York purchase circle lists the following as the top 10 most popular books uniquely purchased in New York, NY:

1. <a href="The Franklin Report : New York City 2001, The Insiders Guide to Home Service Providers

2. <a href="The Manhattan Directory of Private Nursery Schools

3. <a href="City Baby: The Ultimate Guide for New York City Parents from Pregnancy to Preschool

4. <a href="The Manhattan Family Guide to Private Schools

5. Weekend Utopia: Modern Living in the Hamptons

6. Ungentle Shakespeare: Scenes from his Life

7. The Grownup's Guide to Living with Kids in Manhattan

8. The True History of Chocolate

9. Building Business Spreadsheets using Excel

10. <a href="Kissing in Manhattan

New York purchase circle