November 13, 2009

Wait, now this one is about books

So I caved and ordered 2666 by Roberto Bolano from amazon.ca. Here is the link to the book I ordered. Here is the link to the book I should have ordered. Look at them side by side. Do you see the difference?

...

The difference is that the one I ordered was in Spanish! Hilarious! Funny thing, if you search '2666' on Amazon, the Spanish version is the first result. How silly of me to order it. Maybe if the customer reviews hadn't been in English, making me think that it was read by people who speak English? I see now that if I had bothered to search inside, I would have seen the Spanish, but I wasn't buying a picture book, so I didn't bother. And yes, I see that it's in the product details, but I didn't think that was required reading.

So I tried to return it and was pleased to see that Amazon would pay for the shipping and send a replacement, since it was their mistake for not making the language obvious. But then I got an email (promptly and from a real person, to my surprise) telling me that it was actually my mistake and so I had to pay for the shipping and would only get a refund. Meaning that if I wanted to re-order the book in English I would have to pay for that shipping too. After a frustrating morning of writing frustrated emails and getting prompt replies from humans, finally one of them gave in and said they would pay for the return shipping, but I would still just get a refund instead of a replacement. Which is what I wanted. I'll just take that refund and buy 2666 at my neighbourhood bookstore.

No comments: