© The NY TIMES INC.
June 18, 2000, Sunday

So It Goes
Letter to the Editor, New York Times

To the Editor:

In her essay ''Navigating the Amazon Circle'' (May 21), Katie Hafner makes fun of Amazon.com's purchase circles, which tell you what groups are interested in a given book and what other books a given group seems to like.

I agree that most of what turns up in such ''data dicing'' exercises is likely to be trivial, but I recently found a tidbit I consider meaningful. I was ordering a copy of Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five for a bat mitzvah present, and I saw that it was popular at the United States Military Academy. I clicked up the top 20 books ordered at West Point, and mixed in with The Art of War, The Face of War, some World War II memoirs and books on physical fitness was Vonnegut's book, which could have been titled ''The Face of Massacre.''

I find it very comforting to think that even a smattering of the cadets at West Point might be giving some thought to what it's like when war goes crazy.

David Grant
San Antonio