Dear Amazon.com Customer,

We’ve noticed that customers who have purchased or rated books by Dr. Seuss have also purchased The Politics of Inequity in Developing Countries (International Political Economy) by Philip Nel. For this reason, you might like to know that The Politics of Inequity in Developing Countries (International Political Economy) will be released on May 27, 2008.  You can pre-order yours by following the link below.

Now it turns out on further investigation that this Philip Nel is also the author of Dr. Seuss: American Icon and The Annotated Cat, not to mention an unauthorized guidebook to the Harry Potter novels. So there does seem to be some correlation here. But I’m guessing that my 18-month-old nephew Elijah will find Mr. Nel’s treatise quite a disappointment after One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish. Though if he does enjoy it, I’ll make sure to send him The Avant-Garde and American Postmodernity: Small Incisive Shocks and Democratizing Foreign Policy?: Lessons from South Africa for his birthday. (Quick: what rhymes with “Mozambique”?)

Still, looking at the product description of the book on Amazon (“This book argues that a high level of economic inequality undermines a country’s growth potential, retards the development of social capital, and encourages corruption”) I can’t help but think: Isn’t that essentially the plot of The Lorax?

I haven’t laughed this hard at Amazon’s expense since the email suggesting that I might enjoy Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ because I purchased — get this — Quentin Tarantino’s Kill Bill, Volume 2. Really. True story. Of course, it’s certainly possible that the juxtaposition was a purposeful attempt by certain customers to subvert the Amazon recommendations against a movie they disliked. But no, it’s more fun to think that Jeff Bezos’ algorithms really did find some thematic undercurrent between these two films, besides the excessive violence.