Chris and I were in a Barnes & Noble the other day, looking at computer books while we killed time before a movie, and I realized that Amazon has completely ruined me for normal bookstore shopping. It’s not that I have any particular fondness for the company or the site itself, but in the space of a couple years they’ve successfully convinced me that it’s unreasonable to pay list price for anything, especially if I don’t get to read reviews of it and similar products before buying. Two of the books I was interested in go for $45 each list, and both of them are $30.50 each on Amazon (with free shipping). But I’m still probably not going to buy them, because it turns out that there’s another book on the same topic that has better reviews. While I’m still happy buying from places like A Common Reader (their entire catalog is essentially reviews), I can’t imagine buying a book I don’t know anything about from BN or Borders.