Wednesday, July 15, 1998

        Someone wrote this morning and said that my links to books at Amazon hadn't been working lately, that they'd just been going to a generic search page. I checked, and she was right, so I fixed them. Amazon was adding some weird little letter in between the ISBN number and my account number that was causing the link not to work.

        I suppose this is as good a time as any to talk about Amazon. I know that at least one online journaler has written that she thinks linking to booksellers and music stores is "prostituting" oneself, but I don't agree. I suppose I have felt just a little weird about it, though, because I know I have sort of avoided talking about it here at any length. I don't know why writing here and publishing on the web should be a completely selfless act, though. It's not exactly a charity proposition. The reason I write here, keep this journal, is obviously not to make money. It costs money, quite a bit of money, to maintain. So if I can find a few small ways to profit from my work, I really don't see anything wrong with it.

        You may not be aware of it, but when you follow a link from one of my pages to Amazon and you buy a book, I get a small commission from it. Even if you don't buy the book I linked to, but go on to buy anything (assuming you followed a link from my site in the first place), I get something. It currently amounts to something like $200 a year.

        I was linking to Amazon's descriptions of books even before they started the commission program. I always thought it was a nice thing to do, especially since I don't think I'm very good at writing reviews. I would just give my brief impression of the book and link to Amazon, where a much better review could be found, and if someone was interested enough in the book to buy it, they could do that, too. Getting a 5% commission or whatever it is hasn't affected the way I do things here. I don't come up with lists of books just to try to get people to buy them. I recommend books that I have truly loved, and if I didn't like a book, I say that, too.

        Anyway, I honestly think it's a pretty good deal for everyone concerned. People who may not have access to good bookstores can order through the mail and have books delivered right to their doorstep, and I get a few cents out of the deal as well, which helps me pay the bills on this website.

        If you tried to follow the links to books in the past couple of days and were frustrated that they didn't work (I would have been), here they are again (working, this time, I checked):

A Walk in the Woods - Bill Bryson

Notes from a Small Island - Bill Bryson

Once Around - Barbara Bretton

Running with the Demon - Terry Brooks

        Also, and especially for the benefit of people who haven't been reading this journal since the beginning of time, I do have a bibliography page called The Book Shelf, where lots of my favorite books are gathered in one place. It pretty much mirrors the bookshelf that sits beside my chair, although it probably could stand some updating. I'll try to do that this week. There's also my Reading List page, where I've listed all the books I've read this year and last, and the ones that I intend to read, just so I don't forget about them. I would also like to do a page of favorite music. I woke up thinking about that this morning. I may work on that one, too.

        That crash was me falling off the wagon. My resolve didn't last very long. I'm talking about the planner thing, of course. I remembered that I still had Franklin Planner pages lasting through the end of the year in the binder that I had been using at work. They're the larger size and they don't fit in my beautiful woven leather binder, but they'll do, and they'll save me $30.00. I have an old Day-Timer binder that I bought about fifteen years ago that's still nice--pebbled burgundy leather with my name on a brass plate on the front.

        So I thought I'd go by the Franklin store and pick up some blank lined pages for notes that don't belong on dated pages. Mike tried to talk me out of it, diplomatically, but I assured him that all I was going to buy was one package of lined pages. That's all, just one. I thought I could be strong.

        I didn't do too badly, actually. I got out of there for $23. Two packages of lined pages, one with a green border and one without. A new "Today" page marker (the kind that you can stick stuff, like business cards and photographs, in). Some address and telephone tabs (A-Z). Some list pages that are about two inches wide. And some graph paper. I have no idea why, I don't really have any use for graph paper, but I've always liked it. I did sort of carefully look at pretty much everything in the store so that I won't have an excuse for going back anytime soon.

        And then I went to Stein Mart.

        I had a purpose there, too. When I broke the glass the other day, a lot of the little pieces of glass landed on the rug in front of the sink. I took it outside and shook it, but I'm still afraid that there are probably tiny pieces of glass in it. I was going to wash it, but then I realized that that was probably a bad idea--if there are little pieces of glass in it, they might just end up in the washer and, ultimately, in our clothes, probably Bob's, knowing the way those things usually work.

        So I thought I'd go buy a new rug for the kitchen. They didn't have the one I wanted, which would have been the same one that I had--a half circle of plain, unbleached cotton loops. They had the same rug, but not the same color. After looking at every rug in the place, I finally settled on a rose pink one. It's not "me," but it will do. And it was less than $10, so if I find one I like better somewhere later, I can still buy another one. They did have some rugs on clearance, but they weren't rubber-backed, which I think a kitchen rug should be. I bought two, though, to put in front of the couch.

        And charms. They sometimes have really wonderful silver jewelry at Stein Mart, and I always look although I seldom buy jewelry anymore. I got a pair of silver earrings in the shape of coffee cups with silver steam rising out of them, and a tiny, working compass so I'll always know where I am . . .