[This would be the thirteenth episode of Mr. Amazon's Bookshop, if it were an episode. The previous episode is here. A list of all episodes is here. In the previous episode, Kylie and Edmund vanished from Whimsley Hall after finding out that Mr. Amazon's recommendations were doing nothing to help sell Kylie's story The Adventures of Wazzock. Whimsley sunk into a brief depression before being roused by Jennie the one-legged housekeeper, who sent him into the village just in time to see Kylie and a pack of teenagers heading towards Mr. Amazon's Bookshop with trouble on their minds.]

I wrote the first ten episodes of this story in a couple of weeks around Christmas, when I had some time off work and the story seemed fresh and interesting. The two most recent episodes have been written on weekends in and around cooking, cleaning and so on. And now we have all the principals with the exception of Jennie the one-legged housekeeper – Whimsley, Google, Kylie, Edmund (who is in the crowd, near the back, though you might not have noticed him), Mr. Amazon -  in one place, and something dramatic is obviously about to happen. But what?

Now I don't want to go all John Fowles here (see the book in the title) and pontificate about the nature of the plot as artifice and the role of the author. That's so last century. Plus, when Fowles wrote that he could send his heroine this way or that, and when he wrote his alternative endings, he had actually finished his book, so the questioning of his role as author was a little precious.

My problem is different. I don't have two ways to finish the story, I have none. In fact, there is no story from here on.

I have some ideas about things that might happen next, including what seems to me a rather neat twist about the obviously impending assault on Mr. Amazon's Bookshop, but they are vague and they have problems. Not least among them is my growing tiredness with Whimsley himself. His one-dimensional nature was a benefit in Mr. Google's Guidebook (written just over a year ago! how time flies), but after stretching him over 15,000 words rather than 2,000 I am not sure there is much more to be said about the internet from the point of view of a delusional alcoholic gothic anachronism.

I did think Kylie may provide an alternative focus for the story, but she has fallen somewhere between a youthful village mob-boss, a smart and witty kid, and a yokel, without one aspect of her character really crystallizing in my imagination.

And then there is the technology issue. Clearly the Kindle has to come in to the plot somehow. Having Google already on scene means that a last-minute twist driven by the Google Book Settlement might be a nice way to finish off the tale. Perhaps Kylie drives Amazon out of town only to hand Google her stories for him to distribute? And I am sure that after all this it will turn out that there are indeed mole-people, but that they are working for Google, not Amazon, slavishly copying all those books for his ever-expanding guidebook.

So we will see. I realize this raises questions about the responsibility of the author to finish a story once started. I would like to finish it, and I expect that I will do so. But there will be no episode this week.

This is not a fish for attention and reinforcement, by the way. I have appreciated the comments on earlier episodes. And to prove that it is not, I will close comments on this posting. It's just an observation that I have other things going on, like work and family and friends and books and spring, and I have no episodes stocked away ready to be brought out and posted. If anyone wishes to continue the story on their own blog, feel free: I will be happy to link to it.

So with that, see you next week, with luck.

[This is the twelfth episode of Mr. Amazon’s Bookshop. The previous episode is here. A list of all episodes is here. In the previous episode, Kylie and Edmund spent a morning running Whimsley’s differ and made some disturbing findings about the Mr. Amazon’s recommendations. Then Kylie left without warning to go and steal some lunch, leaving Whimsley even more bemused than usual.]

After the excitement and confusion of Kylie and Edmund’s investigation, evening found me tired and emotional. My head was spinning with all the numbers they had collected and what Kylie seemed to make of them. You may not believe this, but I was feeling a little out of my depth. At sea even. We gentry typically have little use for numbers bigger than a dozen or so; anything more and we have hired help to deal with them. And though my interest in the differ had got me more familiar with numerology than most of my class, I had always been more enthusiastic about building the device than actually using it.

I had written Kylie off as riff-raff when I first met her, but I was beginning to realize that some of these youngsters may actually know a thing or two. Her outburst about Mr. Amazon’s unfairness carried the mark of immaturity and self-dramatization so characteristic of her class and sex, but as I pored over the notebook I really did not know what to make of the reams of Edmund’s writing in my notebook. Yesterday Kylie had showed me one page of summary and claimed that is showed Mr. Amazon’s populist claims to be fraudulent, but as I turned page after page of my notebook I could make neither head nor tail of the admirably neat tables and lists that I saw in front of me. My first thought was that it would be embarrassing to have to ask for more detailed explanations, but then I realized that numerology is really a matter for the trades, not for men of standing, so there is no shame in being a little foggy when it comes to details. My neighbour Mr. Belloc was correct when he told me of his friend’s fate:

By then I was looking forward to Kylie’s return, when I would demand further explanation of her investigations and take our next steps in what seemed increasingly like a campaign against Mr. Amazon and his book “shop”. I had the bit between my teeth and was ready to run – I felt energized and zealous.

But Kylie did not reappear the next day. I fretted, and paced the grounds.

And she did not appear the following day either. I went by the gardener’s hut to ask Edmund her whereabouts, but Edmund had vanished as well! I expressed my concern to his father, who told me Edmund frequently went to stay with relatives in the village and that I “should not worry my little head”, which seemed charming enough, but was hardly helpful.

When neither was to be seen on the third morning, my spirits tumbled and I retreated into the gloom of Whimsley Hall. Their explosion of youthful energy reminded me what a grim dwelling it has become over the years, and their sudden absence plunged me into weeks of sour temper. The stone pillars, the sepulchural halls, the long shadows – they speak to my bones through the generations of Whimsleys, and yet there are times when I resent their weight and their lugubrious depths. A darkness came over me in those days, despite the summer sunshine outside. I spent morning after morning in the breakfast room just staring at the patterns made by the damp on the ornate wallpaper, afternoons in the library poring slack-jawed over erotic tales and cheap pulp novels. The evenings in fitful, chemically-assisted slumber.

Google would bring me the newspaper each morning and tell me the odd facts he always has at his fingertips that would normally keep me amused, yet they could do nothing to lift my spirits. Jennie would clatter into the room, swinging on her crutch, to bring me my breakfast or to clean away a few of the every-accumulating cobwebs. Usually a friendly sight, she became a Barquentine-like presence, stunted and cantakerous and clouded with a deep rage. And why not? He family has served mine for six generations, tied almost as intimately as myself to the arches and history of Whimsley Hall. She has watched from close up my failure to maintain its legacy, to prevent its fall. The world was changing around me, I felt. Whimsley Hall has been, truth to tell, an anachronism for years. And now, in the new world of the prim Mr. Amazon and his impersonally-friendly recommendations, what place would there be for the traditional virtues of short sharp floggings, of loyalty and doffings of caps and tied cottages? Ritual and symbol were fading. I could see no way to raise myself from despondency.

It was Jennie who dragged me out of my self-absorpion, as autumn approached and the winds and rain came back to scour Whimsley village. One morning she hobbled in with my usual breakfast tray of fried eggs, fried bacon, fried black pudding, fried potatoes, fried sausages, fried mushrooms, fried tomatoes and fried bread, together with a half-full bowl of soup. She was breathing deeply, clearly exhausted from her journey up the staircase as she cleared a spot on the desk and threw the tray unceremoniously in front of me. “There you go. Full English. Not that it will help.”

“What do you mean, help?” Jennie rarely spoke these days, so I was taken aback.

“You’ve not been eating right for weeks. Ever since that excitement with Kylie and Edmund and the differ. You’re going downhill in a big way sir, and I’m not going to stand by and watch it happen. You need to pull yourself together.”

Of course, if there is one thing guaranteed not to help a person in spiritual pain it is telling them to pull themselves together. I scowled and stabbed a fork half-hearedly at a half-hearted sausage.

“You’re fretting about them numbers Kylie and Edmund put together ain’t you? She’s too quick for the likes of you, that one.”

“You know Kylie?”

“Well”, she said in a most un-servant-like tone, “they don’t call it Whimsley village for nothing. It’s not exactly surprising if I live down the street from Kylie Higgins is it? There’s not that many streets. And even if I didn’t, everyone knows Kylie. You can’t miss that one, what with running the bookie’s for her Dad. She’s smart, that kid, and she puts up with no nonsense.”

“The bookie’s eh? That would explain her facility with numbers. Do you know where she is? She said she would be back, but then she and Edmund just vanished.”

“Well she’s been up to no good, I can tell you that. Sometimes I sit on my porch of an evening you know. Watch the dogs fight, just to pass the time. It’s not easy to get around a lot, what with having one leg. Not that some people care, getting me to hop up and down staircases all bloody day long.”

“A little exercise will do you good, I’m sure. Just you wait and see. But what do you mean ‘up to no good’?”

“What I heard was that she decided Mr. Amazon’s a fraud. So she’s been rounding up some of the local kids – teenagers with nowt to do over the summer holidays. She started off by telling them stories about this Wazzock character and his dragon and they loved it. But then last night she just stopped. They got mad and she just says ‘Well if you want to know more you’d better go and get Mr. Bloody Amazon to sell you a book then.’ They didn’t look so keen on that, so she says ‘And if you don’t want to buy one, maybe you could just take it. Who’s to stop you?'” So I reckon she’s got it in for this Amazon and she’s going to set the neighbourhood kids on him – break in and do the place over,
if you get my meaning. Maybe they’ve already done it.”

“I’ve no doubt she’s capable of vandalism. But vandalism won’t help sell her book, will it? I think I’ll have to talk some sense into the young harridan. We pillars of the community have a duty, don’t you know?”

“You betcha. You’d better not waste any time if you want to stop her. You’ll probably find her at the bookie’s or in the park by the pond. So you won’t be needing these eggs then? Not to worry, I’ll look after them.” And with that Jennie whisked the tray from under my nose, and clattered off towards the staircase before I could say anything, spilling the remaining soup in all directions as she went.

It was indeed time, I decided, to take action. Raising myself from my torpor I flung open the windows and breathed in the stale odour of the Whimsley air. I found my walking stick, put on my heaviest boots and within a few minutes I was striding off down the road to the village, with the cobwebs of my mind left among the cobwebs of Whimsley Hall. Just as I approached the gate I noticed Google talking to the gardener. He’s a big man and might be handy if there’s trouble, I decided. “You’re with me Google!” I cried, “There’s trouble at Mr. Amazon’s shop and we need to be the voice of reason. I know you don’t like the man – not too keen on him myself – but we can’t have hooliganism in Whimsley village. Not cricket is it?” I’m gratified to say that Google looked shocked. I can tell you that doesn’t happen often. He dropped his conversation like a hot potato and came after me, and the gardener followed too.

We approached the village and turned up the street on which Mr. Amazon’s bookshop was found, and were greeted by the sight of a crowd of youth – perhaps twenty of them – approaching the shop from the other end. They looked tense and nervous; sleeves rolled up, ready for business. Kylie was at their head, but she didn’t even acknowledge my presence. Instead the crowd went straight to the bookshop and she yanked at the door.

It did not open.

“Hey, Amazon!” she yelled. “I want some answers. And I want you to sell some copies of my book. I’ve got some customers here, so let us in, right?” She hammered on the door again.

It looked like there was going to be trouble. How delicious!

[This is the eleventh episode of Mr. Amazon’s Bookshop. A list of all episodes is here; the previous episode is here. In the previous episode Kylie began to think that Mr. Amazon might be “just like the bastard publishers”, pushing big sellers at customers rather than promoting books like her own novel The Adventures of Wazzock. Meanwhile, Whimsley was becoming increasingly befuddled by the swirl of activity around him. His befuddlement even interfered with his sleep….]

I had trouble sleeping that night. It wasn’t just the heat mixing with the cat-urine-induced damp of the carpets to produce the acidic tang that so characterizes Whimsley Hall in the summer; I find that odour reminds me of my own childhood and is surprisingly comforting. No, Kylie’s virulence had quite upset me and my usual tonics did not seem to relax me as they usually do. But finally I slept fitfully, only to dream…

A sheet of paper in my notebook had a summary of each of the shops they had created, the median sales rank, and the time spent in browsing around the top 100,000 sellers. Here it is.

Store Median  Top 100K   Seed Book
 7     1742    87.5    Testimony
 4     2007    91.4    The Lucky One
 9     2113    89.4    The Shock Doctrine
10     2113    87.6    Special Topics in Calamity Physics
12     2191    86.5    Our Mutual Friend
 1     2192    89.8    The Shack
29     2238    98.3    Bones
20     2276    88.2    The Shock Doctrine
22     2388    88.5    The Long Tail
17     2471    92.5    Our Mutual Friend
 8     2650    86.6    Conservatism That Can Win Again
21     2808    90.4    The Conscience of a Liberal
24     2888    90.1    The Long Tail
27     3135    88.8    The Long Tail
 5     3158    96.0    Seven Habits of Highly Successful People
19     3380    89.1    The Long Tail
 6     3438    91.2    No One Makes You Shop at Wal-Mart
14     3487    88.2    The Conscience of a Liberal
25     3610    88.3    The Long Tail
23     3627    93.3    The Long Tail
26     3681    91.5    The Long Tail
18     4060    84.8    The Conscience of a Liberal
13     4101    88.0    Surrender is Not an Option
16     5326    90.0    Riddley Walker
30     5750    87.9    Graph Drawing
28     6117    88.3    The Secret History
 2     6222    86.2    How To Eat
15     7231    84.6    Our Mutual Friend
31     7583    100     The Secret History
 2    17794    76.3    Last Best Gifts
11    51992    58.5    The Dilbert Principle

I pored over the numbers, unsure what to make of them. “So explain, snotnose” I grumbled. Somehow this venture did not feel entirely mine any more.

“A bit different. It’s basically an academic book and you end up going round a lot of other academic books. You don’t always do that – like Graph Theory is pretty much like a bestseller – but Last Best Gifts seems to just wander the academic ghetto. What a bunch of losers!”

“And The Secret History?”

“That’ll have to wait until tomorrow. I’m hungry and I’m going to steal some lunch.” And with that she stalked, hands deep in pockets, down the drive towards the village.

[This is the ninth instalment of Mr. Amazon’s Bookshop. A list of all instalments is here; the previous instalment is here.]

I could hardly believe my bleary eyes when I entered the stable the next day — young Edmund was there already, sitting at the trestle table next to the differ controls, with my private notebook open in front of him! He may smudge it with his grubby gardener fingers, or drip his slimy gardener snot over my pages! I swatted him across the back of the hands with my switch (I always carry a switch). “Enough of that lad! What do you think you’re doing? Don’t meddle in matters you don’t understand.”

“Sorry Mr. Whimsley sir. I was just thinking, that’s all. And drawing.”

“Drawing! Drawing what?”

“Well, you were thinking about them books, right?”

“Yes, to put it simplistically, I concede you could say that.”

“Well, I drew some graphs for you. I like graphs. They have colours.”

“Graphs of what, you idiot? I do hope you’ve not been messing up my notebook!”

“Oh no sir. Here they are, in my own scrapbook.” He put a great big book onto the table and showed me. I was stunned: the airhead was apparently not entirely stupid. Here is what I saw.

I could not immediately discern what the graph was saying, so I demanded: “Explain this to me Edmund!”

“Well sir, I’m not entirely sure, but I was looking at this last night and it seems to me that you can use a graph like this to say something about whether Mr. Amazon is making culture more democratic or not. You know, like Kylie says.”

“You know that scold Kylie? How on earth?”

“Yes sir. At least, when we’re at school she always beats me up and takes my lunch money from me, and even though it’s summer holidays she turned up at my house yesterday because she said she was bored and wanted a reason to be pissed off at someone. I was looking at your notebook so she just took it. She’s a bit like that.”

“I had noticed. But wait a minute! You had my notebook? What kind of effrontery is that?”

“Well, judging from how loud you were snoring and the level of the scotch bottle on the table in the conservatory you weren’t going to be needing it, so I thought I might be able to help you a little.”

I brandished the switch, but restrained myself.

“Tell me the rest, vagabond.”

“Well Kylie, she looks at it, and she says ‘This is T’owd Git’s innit?'”

“T’owd Git?”

“That’s what we all call you in the village. I’m not sure what it means. Something like “his lordship” but more affectionate I think. Anyway, she stared at it for some time and muttered to herself and then looked at me and said in this really grim voice, ‘The median salesrank is crap. And the distribution is scanty. There are too many repeats here. Something’s not right.’ Then she gave it back to me and slapped my on the head.”

“Median distribution? What could she mean?”

“I don’t know sir, but I think she’s coming up here soon to talk to you about it. She’s not right pleased.”

Sure enough, who was coming up the driveway but Kylie, striding purposefully, arms swinging and fingers clenching. She entered the stable and stood, arms crossed, staring pugnaciously up at me.

“Well Mr. W. Looks like we have a problem don’t it?”

“What’s that, Kylie? This is really too early in the morning for stressful conversations. Can’t it wait?”

“Either you don’t know what you’re doing with that differ of yours” – she gestured dismissively towards my magnificent machine – or Mr. Amazon ain’t what I hoped he’d be. Now between you and me, guv’nor, Mr. Amazon looks a lot more likely to be the goods than you do. But I’ve got a lot riding on The Adventures of Wazzock and I need to know for sure. That’s why I’m here.”

“I don’t know what you mean? Amazon is a prim little functionary, while I am a scholar and a gentleman.”

“Right you are. So he’s got an eye on the ready and you’re just pissing about, when you’re not blotto that is.” She nodded at my overcoat pocket, where my cognac flask created, I fear, a slight bulge.

“And one other thing. That notebook of yours said it was volume 49 number 11, so I’m thinking you do a lot of writing. I bet you’re going to write this whole escapade down in one of them notebooks of yours ain’t you?”

“Well, the thought had crossed my mind,” I admitted.

“Well I bet you make a reet mess of the way I speak. I bet it’s nowt like how I sound. I bet you can’t even decide what part of the country I come from.”

“Never mind that, young lady. Back to your visit. I have a proposal.”

She raised her left eyebrow quizzically.

“Three things. First, you get to take part in my grand inquisition here. I’d be lying if I told you that I like Mr. Amazon, but I do want to be fair and you may be able to help balance my enthusiasms.”

“Fair enough.”

“Second, you stop taking young Edmund’s lunch money.” The gormless youngster was positively cowering from Kylie, and a small part of me felt almost protective of the rabbit-like idiot.

“No problem. He never has much anyway.” She glanced scornfully and dismissively in the oaf’s direction. “Relax, prat. I’ll leave you be.” Edmund gave a long and relieved sigh.

“And third, you promise to work with us as a team.”

“No sweat guv’nor. Let’s get to work. Show me what you’ve got.”

I brought out my notebook and Edmund’s scrapbook. She snatched them both and took them into the corner and stared fixedly at them for ten minutes. I was a little affronted, but Kylie was such a hellion that I dared not interrupt, so I pretended to be inspecting and oiling the differ. Finally, she emerged.

“Right Mr. W. First thing. Your method is crap. You obviously have no idea about proper statistics. You look like you’re making it up as you go along.”

“But the differ…”

“But let’s put that aside. I don’t see that other methods are going to give information that’s much different. The best way to know what Mr. A. is up to is to look inside his operation, but even I don’t know how to do that, so I’m sure you haven’t got a clue. Without that kind of insider info, this will have to do. The problem is not collecting information, it’s knowing what questions you want to ask of it once you’ve collected it.”

“Well why don’t you tell me your ideas, since you seem to have such a low opinion of mine.”

“Right you are then. You’ve got a couple of good things, here in this  scrapbook. Funny how your handwriting is getting better, and these graphs are very nice. Is this your neat copy or what?” Fortunately she did not give me a chance to answer.

“This graph. Here’s the way I see it. You’ve got about 10,000 book views here. That’s books Mr. A. has recommended and that you’ve picked up to look at. The median sales rank is 2120. That means about half of all the book views in this shop, the one that’s grown from Special Topics in Crap Physics or whatever, is spent in the top 2000 sellers. Now 2000 is a small number.”

“No it ain’t,” the stunted moron interjected, “it’s a bloody big number.” 

Kylie paused. “Unbelievably, you may be right, blockhead. First thing we do, we find
out how big a number 2000 is. And there are some other numbers too. Four fifths of the time is spent looking at books in the top 30,000. And just over an eighth of the time is spent looking at books outside the top 100,000. So are these big numbers or what?”

“I believe I can help.” I had been caught a little off-balance with this flurry of numbers and thoughts, but righted myself quickly to reassert my natural authority. “I have just the person who can tell us these things. My butler is a whiz when it comes to trivia.”

“Is that Mr. Google?” asked Kylie, “Yeah, he’s smart. Let’s go find him and ask.”

[This is the seventh instalment of Mr. Amazon's Bookshop. A list of all instalments is here; the previous instalment is here.]

Edmund, the gardener's son, has the look of a runt about him: he is undersized, has a perpetually dripping nose and a habit of scratching his backside. He is looked down on by the Whimsley village children, which is an achievement in itself: he positively broadcasts stupidity. On the other hand, his is obedient and hardworking, which are important qualities in the servant classes, and has a strong pair of arms so I decided to let him assist me with my investigation.

I dragged Edmund out to the stables on a warm July morning, ready to set the differ to work and send more questions to Mr. Amazon, and with a fresh supply of pencils to record the results in my trusty notebook. I set the young halfwit to start the bellows and he soon worked up a healthy pressure. I turned the dials and tugged the pulleys to set my question, and was about to pull the master lever one more time, when Edmund shouted and pointed up at the stable roof. I followed the line of the simpleton's finger, and saw the topmost reaches of my differ perspiring and shivering, as if with fever. The pistons wailed, the cylinders grated, and then the edifice ground to a juddering halt with an earsplitting thud. The differ was obviously damaged and my investigations were going nowhere soon. I kicked Edmund out of the stables in frustration.

For the next month I searched for parts, scoured manuals, and consulted other differ enthusiasts in an attempt to fix my machine. And while I waited for the postman to bring the replies to my questions I did what I could to keep myself occupied. I even cleaned some of the abandoned rooms in Whimsley Hall, myself. The drawing room I restored to, if not exactly its former stateliness, then at least habitability. The worst of the cobwebs and nests were evicted, and with a solution of vinegar and water I attacked the windows so vigorously that light penetrated the room for the first time in years. Thanks to the previous gloom the velvet drapery and the rich colours of the upholstery were unfaded, but the profuse spattering of stains were too ingrained to be removed. I did not mind. They were part, you might say, of the fabric of the place, and each with its own memory.

When I was too tired to work on Whimsley Hall I walked to the village and back, pacing the bounds of the old estate. With head thrust forward, deep in thought, and with a perpetual frown on my face I was doubtless a forbidding site sight, and I was avoided by most villagers.

It was on one of these walks that I was bumped into, literally, by one of the youngsters I had seen around the village – none other than the pugilistic Jane Austen you may recall from a couple of months earlier. I was walking alongside the river, and seized her by the ear as she attempted to barge past on the narrow pathway.

"Ow! Leggo! Piss off guv'nor!" she bawled, in that endearing manner I have come to know so well in the past few months.

"Not before you tell me your name, young harridan!"

"It's Kylie, innit" she grunted.

"How likely. I'm not convinced at all. You know who I am?"

"Yeah, you're the bloke what lives at the Hall, innit?"

"Seventh Earl of Whimsley, but I will let is pass. You can call me Mr. Whimsley and I'll call you Kylie for now. Now listen, I have some questions for you. I need answers and I'm prepared to pay. Shall we say a hot chocolate at Mr. Horton's? That should pay for fifteen minutes of your time."

"Whatever. Just let go of me bloody ear! And stop writin' me dialogue in that patronizing phonetic bullshit way. It's not like you speak the way it's written."

"Deal. Let's go."

I put her down, and we made our way to Mr. Horton's Coffee Establishment where, once I convinced the proprietor Kylie was not about to steal the contents of the till, we sat and drank a mug of hot chocolate. Kylie was a small and wiry child of about fifteen, with a perpetually sullen expression. I told her that I had overheard her yelling about Mr. Amazon's Bookshop and about her literary ambitions and asked to hear more.

"Look, Mr. Whimsley, I like to write. Always have done, ever since looking after my brothers and sisters when they was real young. I made up stories to keep them from ripping the doors off their hinges. Anything to keep the little buggers quiet. So it became a habit, and I reckon I'm pretty good at it. But there's no way any of those hi-faluting publishers are going to pay attention to me. I have no education worth speaking of, no contacts to call on…"

"And almost certainly no talent. But point taken, go on."

"Well, it's like, Mr. Amazon is an odd fish, but I can get the books I like at his shop so I go there sometimes and then one day he told me that if I had written anything I could just give it to him and he'd sell it, just like he sells the other books. Isn't that amazing?"

"It certainly sounds attractive. And have you taken him up on his generous offer?"

"You bet! I mean, at first I was pretty suspicious and figured he just wanted to rob me of my just rewards, but I had a word with Mr. Anderson – he's a bloke that lives down our street – and he told me it's OK. He said Mr. Amazon's way better than those other bookshops for me because they're all elitist institutions and Mr. Amazon's on my side. He said something else really weird too…" (here she looked around and lowered her voice) "He told me that Mr. Amazon's got a long tail. And that made me think I've only ever seen him from the front, and I can't look over the desk. So maybe it's true! What do you think?"

"Oh I doubt that", was my first reaction, "but come to think of it I, too, see him only from the front. And he does have a certain reptilian quality."

"Anyway", Kylie carried on, "I finished my book a few weeks ago. It's called The Adventures of Wazzock. It's about a boy who finds a polished blue stone in a mountain chain near his home. He discovers that his stone is really a dragon egg when it hatches suddenly in the night. Wazzock gives his dragon the name Saphira, which he learns from the village storyteller. After the dragon hatches the King sends his servants after Wazzock and Saphira, in an effort to capture or kill them. Wazzock and Saphira flee their hometown and embark on a number of adventures involving swordplay, magic, friendship, betrayal, and death."

"I'm sure they do. Very good, very good. And how is it going?"

"It's great. It's only been a few weeks, but I've already sold five copies."

"Really! And who to?"

"Well, there's my brother and my mum, and then my friend Sharon, and then two boys in my class. Of course, I told them I'd beat them up if they didn't buy it. That's called marketing."

"And is he selling your book at any of his other shops, or just here in Whimsley?"

"He's selling it…", here her voice dropped to a hushed whisper, "…all over the world. Anywhere you go, you could walk into a Mr. Amazon and ask for The Adventures of Wazzock and he'll sell it to you. Right then and there. Isn't that amaaziing??!! It's just me and my audience. No gatekeepers! It's just like Mr. Anderson said. I'm alread
y working on my next book, so I'm ready once Wazzock goes viral."

"Admirable. Admirable. Now that's enough young Kylie. I may have need of you again. I have obviously underestimated both you and Mr. Amazon. You have given me much to think on. Off you go."

She grabbed my half-eaten doughnut and waltzed out of the door, looking far too pleased with herself. I pondered, is this how it works? Is this the new world? Are "real" bookshops a thing of the past? Perhaps – the idea filled me with dread – despite all my effort at staying up to date, I am not quite as au courant as I like to think. Maybe – notwithstanding my natural flair for the common touch – I am a touch elitist at heart? And could it be that – however maverick I may be in my soul – there is a waft of conservatism that has settled over me in my middle age?

My personal doubts about Mr. Amazon carried over into these broader concerns that I, as a member of the gentry, have such a duty to worry over. Does Mr. Amazon really give any book a chance at success, as young Kylie claims? Is he really an agent in the quest for a more democratic, more varied and diverse culture? Or is he, perhaps, a gatekeeper just as effective as those publishing houses the local hooligans scorn? And is he hiding a long tail behind that desk of his?

Disturbing thoughts. I obviously needed to find out more. My investigation of Amazon seemed to be growing more urgent at every turn, but until the replacement parts for my differ arrived I was stalled. My impatience was, I am sure, almost as intense as yours, waiting for the next episode of my story…