To accuse an online bookshop of being the "devil" seems a little extreme, especially from a man who used to be a banker with JP Morgan. Nevertheless, that's how James Daunt, managing director of Waterstone's, has described rival bookseller Amazon.
Amazon, says Daunt, is "a ruthless, money-making devil". Now, making money, ruthlessly or not, is surely the aim of any business but Daunt says Amazon is not "in the consumer's interest".
Amazon, founded in 1994, offers an almost limitless range of books and, usually, offers them at the cheapest prices on the market. Its "ruthless money-making" also means a ruthless focus on giving the customer the best prices.
A great many book buyers have realised that Amazon - and to a lesser extent other online booksellers - serve them better than their local bookshop. Having a well-curated crime fiction table or a display of local interest books won't change that.
Casual book buyers can go to Amazon in their lunch break and order the title they've seen people reading on the train or that their friends have recommended. They can get the ebook in seconds but even the print version will usually be at the door the following day.
For many people, that's preferable to a trip to the High Street to see whether the local shop has the book you want.
Serious readers, meanwhile, use Amazon because there is a much greater likelihood that more obscure choices or specific editions will be available. When I decide, for example, that the time has come for me to read Omensetter's Luck by William Gass, which has been sitting on my wishlist for months, I know that Amazon will get me a copy by tomorrow. I've never seen a copy in a bookshop and a quick search of the Waterstone's website shows that they don't even offer it online.
Clearly, an online bookshop with lower prices and a greater range is bad for Waterstone's and therefore bad for James Daunt but why is it bad for consumers?
Daunt told the Independent: "The computer screen is a terrible environment in which to select books. All that 'If you read this, you'll like that' – it's a dismal way to recommend books. A physical bookshop in which you browse, see, hold, touch and feel books is the environment you want."
I'm sure some people do want that environment. There are probably enough of those people to sustain specialist bookshops but whether there are enough to keep a generalist chain such as Waterstone's alive is debatable.
Daunt acknowledges the need to embrace ebooks, saying that Waterstone's branches will have an ereader section in them. The company will even produce its own version, which he jokingly calls "the Windle", but he wants to follow the model pursued by US bookseller Barnes & Noble.
He says: "They've embedded their own e-book, called the Nook, within their bookshops and have succeeded in taking market share from the Kindle."
Having its own reader won't be enough for Waterstone's if it can't compete with Amazon on price and availability.
Having access to the internet means always being in a bookshop. Read an interesting book review online? Open a new browser tab and you can order it immediately. Found a good recommendation on LibraryThing or Good Reads? Add it to your wishlist with one click using an Amazon browser extension. Seen a new book in a physical shop and want to know whether Amazon has it cheaper? Take a photo using Amazon's mobile app and it will look up the price instantly.
James Daunt seems not to understand that. However, as Upton Sinclair, the author, once said: "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it."
