Surprise Book Delivery

Posted by Miss Cellania in Book & Lit on February 9, 2009 at 12:25 pm


Michel Cuhaci received a flawed copy of the book A Student’s Guide to Maxwell’s Equation, so he left a one-star review on Amazon. The author, Dan Fleisch responded and promised to send a replacement overnight. At the time, Fleisch did not realize how hard that would be on Christmas Eve!

“I called (parcel services), and getting it delivered was out of the question,” he said. “Then I thought, ‘OK, maybe I can find a bookstore that had it in stock.’ ”

No luck — most bookstores had closed early.

“It got to be late afternoon. I couldn’t find anyway to get it to him.”

His next thought — he’d drive to Canada and deliver the $26 book himself.

“I looked at my iPhone and there was this massive blob (snowstorm) over the whole Northeast,” he said.

Fleisch ended up flying from Ohio to Ottawa to deliver the book on Christmas Day, ending up back home after midnight. His journey reads like a comedy of errors.

Last week Cuhaci went back to Amazon and added a new comment about the book and its author.

“But I did not change the rating,” he said. “I want people to look at my comment and see what a dedicated author he is.”

Link to story. Link to Amazon review. -via reddit


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COMMENT

10 comments to "Surprise Book Delivery"

  1. graymccarty
    February 9th, 2009 at 12:42 pm

    THAT'S dedication. Subby watch the spelling of Ottawa.

  2. Miss Cellania
    February 9th, 2009 at 12:57 pm

    Oops! Sorry about that. I'll fix it.

  3. Alex
    February 9th, 2009 at 2:01 pm

    What a story! That one-star review, airplane ticket, and hours spent in the airport certainly gave Cuhaci a lot of buzz!

  4. Gail Pink
    February 9th, 2009 at 3:22 pm

    Cuhaci sounds like kind of a dick to me.

  5. roger
    February 9th, 2009 at 3:25 pm

    Looking through the Amazon preview, it looks like the author has done a very good job presenting Maxwell's Equations in an accessible manner. He has an original and helpful way of showing Gauss' Law on pg 2, where he enlarges the equation and labels the meaning of each symbol. Most textbooks authors tend to shy away from that type of diagram for whatever reason, maybe they find it too juvenile. But if I knew about this book when I was studying E&M I would have bought it. So kudos to Cuhaci, for the book & the journey!

  6. ThEgg
    February 9th, 2009 at 4:36 pm

    Geez, 1 star because the a flawed copy? What an ass. Ratings are meant for the quality of the product, not the condition it was came in. Unfortunately, accidents happen, that shouldn't reflect whether the book was good or not.

    If I buy a motherboard on Newegg and it comes dead on arrival, I don't give it a one egg rating. I'd return it and get a new one or just a different mobo.

    Shame the author went out of his way for a person like that. Nice of him to do such a thing, but for someone like that? That one stupid rating could force him to lose lots of sales for no reason.

  7. just a guy
    February 9th, 2009 at 4:45 pm

    “I looked at ****MY iPHONE**** and..."

  8. Dan Smith
    February 9th, 2009 at 10:25 pm

    what a baller dood

  9. ThEgg
    February 10th, 2009 at 4:27 pm

    Loved the iPhone part. Own one mahself. :]

  10. Karen S
    February 10th, 2009 at 9:28 pm

    I was SO surprised to see a Neatorama article on this! Dr. Fleisch is a Physics (and Astronomy) professor at the school I go to! He is and always has been an AMAZING professor. He's the kind of professor that lets you (and insists that you) call him at his HOME PHONE NUMBER anytime that you have trouble, even if it's the middle of the night.

    It's just the type of guy he is. :)

    Kinda glad to see that it's getting recognition!


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