Reading in Reykjavík

Ugh! I am trying to finish the What's in a Name challenge by reading a book with a number in numbers in the title, and decided Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury would be a fine ending to the challenge. I have an anthology containing 5 Bradbury novels that I bought second hand and have been intending to read for a while, so I dug it out from the back of my TBR bookcase and started reading, only to be met with a musty stench so strong that it's making me sneeze every time I turn a page and it is wafted in my direction. This can't be healthy. I may have to find another book to finish the challenge.

Just because you like highbrow, it doesn‘t entitle you to shame others for reading what you consider lowbrow . You might be tempted to say "At least they're reading", but that would be wrong too. They have the right to do whatever they fucking want to with books: read them, ignore them, use them for decoration, use them for toilet paper for that matter.

Happily, the body of the article isn't so prejudicial, but still: WTF was the headline writer thinking? I can just see the smirk on their face when they wrote this. (Judging from the tenor of the article, I'd say the journalist isn't the one to blame, but an editor/headline writer).

Make up your fucking mind, will you? When I try to enter my account, I get this: "Okay, I haven't bought anything for 2 years, so they must have deactivated the account. I'll just open a new one." I enter my e-mail address and click on the "new customer" button. Up pops this: "Hmmm. Maybe it's there after all." Then I try various things, like retrieve the password, jump through all the hoops required to do that, etc. and end up with this: In order to contact them directly over this, I have to sign in. Guess what? I can't sign in because the damn system refuses to recognise my password, which I can't retrieve because while the damn system claims to have my e-mail on the register, it suddenly forgets all that once I enter all the required information in order to retrieve it. Classic Catch 22. All I want is my old account back and the wish list of hundreds of items that I spent 5 years accumulating. If that's not possible, I want to be...

This isn’t directly about books, although I have read some that were a true waste of paper and by extension both trees and time. I participate in two book trading societies on the web: Book Mooch and Title Trader. The books I get from my trading buddies abroad have to go through customs. The customs procedures are incredibly bureaucratic and not nearly as streamlined as they could be. The system, as delivery concerns, goes something like this: Customs receives my package and the officer decides it could be a delivery from an Ebay seller, and thus fees and taxes would be due. A couple of days later I get a letter, telling me this and asking for permission to open the package to look for an invoice. The law for the protection of personal information is such that they need permission every time. As far as I can tell a standing permission is out of the question for individuals. I sign the permission and fax it back, with an explanation saying I am being sent the books free of charge, which...

I consider it a courtesy to the people who read my reviews to warn them if there is anything that could be called a spoiler in my review, and I expect the same from others, and although I do sometimes reveal spoilers, I would never, ever reveal the ending to a mystery. Others obviously feel differently. Today I came across a Robin Paige book on TitleTrader that had a review that suggested it was interesting. A visit to Stop! You're killing me showed that it was the second in a series, so off I went to Amazon.com to check out the star rating and, if I liked what I saw, to buy the first book in the series. And what did I find? An author's message by one half of the writing team that reveals the ending to a mystery I was about to start reading, and without a spoiler warning . Thank you so very, very much, Ms. Albert. If this is typical of your tact in general, I don't think I want to read any of your books any time soon. How would you like it if someone forced the ending to yo...