My 50 something brother-in-law appreciated my gift to him–a book that I ordered from Amazon. In fact, he raved about it as soon as he opened it up–a book about a naval explorer of China from the 15th century (famous, if you are into this period of world history).

It was one of the best gift giving moments I’ve had in recent years. I could tell my brother-in-law felt that I understood his love of history and in the process, understood him.

How did I do it? Not that I know much about Chinese history from the 15th century (majors in college, mine was chemical engineering, trump ethnic origin). My brother-in-law had given my husband a book several years ago, because he liked it so much. So I typed the name of the book into Amazon, and got the "Customers who bought this book also bought….." display. Up pops the title of this book, "When China Ruled the Seas: The Treasure Fleet of the Dragon Throne."

Brilliant gift giving, enabled by Amazon.