the coming insurrection

one of my online browsing hobbies is pouring over amazon.com's lists of new or bestselling social sciences non-fiction books. i keep a reading list of books i'd like to read some day -- because otherwise as soon as i have no particular book in mind to read, then nothing sounds appealing. take for instance the ending of my first year of grad school -- once i had free time and went browsing at the central library downtown all i ended up checking out were huxley's island and a few parapsychology books that were pretty crap. i didn't flip my reading switch back on until i found canadians, a pretty interesting book about contemporary canada. after that my reading floodgates flew open and i've been a devout bookworm for the last 18 months.

it seems that just reading books isn't enough, as i'm now tediously examining finite sub-categories of social sciences non-fiction for titles to add to my reading list. i justify this minorly obsessive habit by telling myself that, as an avid reader, i know there are plenty of crap books out there -- especially research on nano-contemporary social phenomenons. take for instance the absurd popularity of malcolm gladwell's books right now. [sidenote: i personally judge gladwell's popularity because i'm not impressed with his pop sociology; i think he over-generalizes some pretty subtle things and stamps his interpretation on it to the crowds' delight; i'll be curious to see how his theories hold up over time.] so sociology is the hip non-fic category for this millisecond -- which means the publishing market is churning out more content in that field, interesting concept, research and writing, or not. phenomena flood the market with junk, so it's not too wacky to keep an extensive list of options -- that way, i know that if the book doesn't deliver on the content-front within the first 20%, i don't have to waste my time feeling like i have to suffer through the book out of some kind of reader's responsibility.

now that i've hyper-analyzed my reading strategy, i can explain that i've so thoroughly combed through amazon.com and .ca, as well as many computerized cycles of recommendations based upon my livingsocial.com book profile, i needed a new source for my fix. i turned to bn.com. i thought it would be the exact same as amazon, just with its signature green-theme design. as in the color, not the trendy environmental phase currently enrapturing the western world. i was surprised to find that its classification scheme was different than amazon's; then again, i would think that's interesting due to my status as an information professional.

browsing bn books > non-fiction > political theory & ideology, i came across something called the coming insurrection. what a title! the book description reads:

The Coming Insurrection is an eloquent call to arms arising from the recent waves of social contestation in France and Europe. Written by the anonymous Invisible Committee in the vein of Guy Debord—and with comparable elegance—it has been proclaimed a manual for terrorism by the French government (who recently arrested its alleged authors). One of its members more adequately described the group as "the name given to a collective voice bent on denouncing contemporary cynicism and reality." The Coming Insurrection is a strategic prescription for an emergent war-machine to "spread anarchy and live communism."

looking at the customer reviews section, under the 'good for' heading were the options: book club, gift giving, inspirational, intellectual stimulation, topical conversation. i had a nice lol when i saw that book club got 1/5 stars -- this book is about the coming insurrection, theoretically by the masses, because that's what an insurrection is. the coming insurrection would be a perfect book club item, because the idea is to spread the word of rebellion! so how the hell did it rate only one out of five stars?

i had an even better lol when i looked further down the 'good for' heading to topical conversation, which was rated 4/5 stars. isn't a book club topical conversation? it's the same thing. and yet the completely divergent customer ratings.

hm.