I loved the idea and wanted to use it for my site, but I also wanted to give my reviews of the books and thought it would be fun if you could click the books to expand them.
UI-wise, adding the big box of text seems tricky since it covers up what you're browsing, it's not entirely clear how to dismiss it while also seemingly being transparent to mouseover events on things beneath it. It's very easy to instantly end up in a state like this:
Yeah I found this limitation, didn't have quite enough time to work out all the kinks this weekend. I comment on this at the bottom of the page, I believe the mouse events go through the summary due to the 3D transformation. I'll probably have to rethink how that state is implemented (thinking fixed position, as long as the browser can smoothly transition).
Maybe a different/better idea is to put the text box in a fixed position out of the way of the books themselves. Even without the event problem it obscures the browsing view.
When I see this I think about the animations, spotting small UX oddities that go against convention.
I can't remember a thing about the books though.
And that is why Amazon don't present their books like this!
Keep going though, but you have to have things like text at an agreed minimum font size and you have to make the interface accessible. Only if you have thought through those parts and got solutions can you dare to do anything new these days online.
I sound critical but I like seeing things like this far more than Amazon's web pages, it is just theirs get my money.
I loved the idea and wanted to use it for my site, but I also wanted to give my reviews of the books and thought it would be fun if you could click the books to expand them.