What was the first book ever sold on Amazon?

The first book ever sold on Amazon was Douglas Hofstadter’s Fluid Concepts and Creative Analogies.

The 1995 book explores how human intelligence works through analogy, pattern recognition, and computer modeling. It grew out of research by Hofstadter and colleagues in the Fluid Analogies Research Group, including work on programs designed to mimic aspects of creative thought.

Amazon’s first customer, John Wainwright, ordered the book on April 3, 1995, when the company was still operating as an online bookstore called Cadabra. The sale is often described as Amazon’s first book order, although some accounts distinguish between the first book ordered and the first book physically shipped. That distinction does not change the standard quiz answer.

The title is sometimes confused with a more famous Hofstadter work, Gödel, Escher, Bach, but that earlier book was not Amazon’s first sale. Fluid Concepts and Creative Analogies was published by Basic Books and remains a notable early landmark in online retail history.