These Reading Rooms Are Easy to Use

Amazon.com virtually created the online retailing industry when it began selling books via the Internet in 1995. Since then, the company has flashed from a mere idea to an expected $1.4 billion in sales this year, with 10.7 million registered customers.

Amazon.com remains the most recognizable brand in e-commerce, but it’s got plenty of competition from other book sites, most notably Barnesandnoble.com.

Both companies say they have the biggest inventory of titles, yet for all their feverish competition they have more in common than not. Each site is graceful and easy to use: With a mouse click, a visitor can hop into a list of books by subject category--business, sports, mysteries, etc.--or by author or title. Both sites offer extensive book reviews, excerpts, sometimes exhaustive lists of their hot-selling books, 50% off the list price for national bestsellers, plus Web chats with authors.

Their greatest asset, though, is the ease with which you can find a book that is still in print but has disappeared from bookstore shelves. Recently I wanted to buy for a relative a copy of Michael Korda’s memoir, “Man to Man: Surviving Prostate Cancer.” The book was published three years ago--a lifetime in the publishing trade. I visited four bookstores in Santa Monica; none had it. Amazon.com and Barnesandnoble.com did, so I ordered a copy from Amazon and three days later it showed up at my relative’s home in Florida.

There are some differences between these two rivals. Barnesandnoble makes an effort to look like a bookstore. By comparison, Amazon’s Web site resembles a department store. Amazon’s page greets visitors with books for sale, as well as offering links to video equipment, music, large-screen TVs, cameras, toys, games, women’s clothing, sporting goods, auctions for Pokemon cards and job openings. Amazon is also quick to recommend to its customers other books they might want to buy--based on their buying habits. Some of my friends like this feature; I find it too invasive.

Another book site alternative is Powell’s Books, a legendary bookstore in Portland, Ore. Powell’s Web site also offers discounts, an eclectic list of titles in stock, insightful recommendations on worthy books and textbooks.

The weakest link for Amazon and Barnesandnoble is their selection of out-of-print books. I did a search for a great film memoir, “Lulu in Hollywood,” by silent screen actress Louise Brooks. Amazon had no copies, but said it would query used bookstores and e-mail me within two weeks. Barnesandnoble, through an affiliated dealer network, offered four copies of “Lulu,” but the cheapest one cost $48.

A better alternative is Advanced Book Exchange, which links together used-book sellers nationwide. ABE’s Web site offered 15 copies of “Lulu in Hollywood,” the cheapest for $12.95.

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Books

Web sites reviewed: Amazon.com: https://www.amazon.com;

Barnesandnoble.com: https://www.barnesandnoble.com; Powell’s Books: https://www.powells.com; Advanced Book Exchange: https://www.abebooks.com.