This article in yesterday’s Guardian brought a smile to my face. Novelist Jim Crace, famed for writing books involving (and quoting) authors who don’t actually exist, has slipped into a surreal life/art overlap after finding that Amazon has attributed a non-existent book to him. Even better, the title, Useless America, is one that even Crace couldn’t have made up. Even even better, Crace also sheds some light on the value of Amazon’s sales rankings when placing his own order (for one copy) sends the ranking up 60,000 points.

While looking for the errant novel on Amazon incidentally I found another oddity in Crace’s catalogue, a book called “Free Sampler”, costing $75. I look forward to more of these sorts of things happening in the future as books and technology vie for control of the world.