My thinking is that if I buy lots of books at once, I'll be efficient with the postage costs. That means probably Amazon, since something like Abebooks which is a market place, not a retailer, loses the advantage of combining postage. Or does anyone have any better ideas? I'm not terribly enamoured of Amazon, but I think it's probably the most useful service for the purpose I want.
So, now's the time to recommend me stuff and I might actually get round to buying it, rather than putting it on a list and hoping that the appropriate title turns up some time. I have found that just asking for recs doesn't really work, so I'm going to play a game. If you comment to recommend something that I should buy, I'll recommend you something in the same format. I most especially want recs for books, but I might buy computer games, or DVDs, or classical music CDs too while I'm at it.
If you recommend a book, please recommend a specific title, not just an author. For classical music, I want recs of recordings really, I generally know what I like in terms of composers. (I don't buy classical music as mp3s, because a movement of a classical work doesn't map sensibly onto a "track" in the mp3 sense.) That said, I am subscribing to emusic again at the moment, so if you want to recommend me pop music, please go ahead. Again, I'd prefer specific songs, or at least albums, rather than just names of artists.
Do you need to know my tastes? My last four years of reading material; my music listening habits thanks to Web 2.0. LastFM is basically useless for classical though, so I should add that I like almost all Baroque and most early 20th century Impressionism, but I'm pickier about Classical and the earlier Romantic stuff. As a very broad generalization, I prefer orchestral or instrumental chamber music to opera and choral music, and secular to sacred, but there are definitely exceptions. Favourite composers: Couperin, Rameau, Scarlatti, Bach (duh!), Telemann, Händel, Mozart, Schubert, Dvorak, Ravel, Débussy, Fauré, Scriabin, Stravinsky. I've probably forgotten some cos I'm bad at making lists.