Book reviews reviewed.

Booktopia, the online bookstore, has a page on its website headed: "WHAT OUR CUSTOMER'S ARE SAYING". OK, that’s just carping. It could have been worse, like We Sell Book’s, greengrocer-style.

Further down that page, Booktopia asks:

Booktopia or Amazon? Taking on the 800 pound gorilla. Well somebody had to do it! Our goal is to be a legitimate alternative to Amazon.

Booktopia’s David is not just taking on Goliath’s might. It is also taking on Goliath’s book reviews. Let’s take two examples. Of Raymond Chandler’s Playback, Booktopia summarises:

Marlowe is hired by an influential lawyer he's never herd of to tail a gorgeous redhead, but decides he prefers to help out the redhead. She's been acquitted of her alcoholic husband's murder, but her father-in-law prefers not to take the court's word for it.
" Chandler wrote like a slumming angel and invested the sun-blinded streets of Los Angeles with a romantic presence: " -- Ross Macdonald

Amazon’s summary:

Marlowe is hired by an influential lawyer he's never herd of to tail a gorgeous redhead, but decides he prefers to help out the redhead. She's been acquitted of her alcoholic husband's murder, but her father-in-law prefers not to take the court's word for it.
"Chandler wrote like a slumming angel and invested the sun-blinded streets of Los Angeles with a romantic presence:" -- Ross Macdonald

Two reviews, one spelling error, one misplaced colon. Booktopia’s quotation has also developed a possibly unwitting space between quotation marks and quotation, probably during formatting.

Example two is The Complete Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway. Amazon:

THE ONLY COMPLETE COLLECTION BY THE NOBEL PRIZE-WINNING AUTHOR
In this definitive collection of Ernest Hemingway's short stories, readers will delight in the author's most beloved classics such as "The Snows of Kilimanjaro," "Hills Like White Elephants," and "A Clean, Well-Lighted Place," and will discover seven new tales published for the first time in this collection. For Hemingway fans The Complete Short Stories is an invaluable treasury.

Booktopia:

THE ONLY COMPLETE COLLECTION BY THE NOBEL PRIZE-WINNING AUTHOR
In this definitive collection of Ernest Hemingway's short stories, readers will delight in the author's most beloved classics such as ""The Snows of Kilimanjaro," "Hills Like White Elephants,"" and ""A Clean, Well-Lighted Place,"" and will discover seven new tales published for the first time in this collection. For Hemingway fans "The Complete Short Stories" is an invaluable treasury.

Booktopia mirrors Amazon’s all capital headline and has developed some superfluous quote marks. Back to Booktopia’s webpage:

Our goal is to be a legitimate alternative to Amazon. ... Once people start ordering from Amazon they often realise the shipping costs are quite expensive. Here at Booktopia, we ship as many books as you want for $6.50. This is very economical.

As is plagiarising Amazon’s editorial reviews.