I find that the Amazon comments often are exceptionally shrewd and insightful, so I'm not going to diss them. But you don't really have any guarantees that what you're reading wasn't written out of friendship or spite.

Like most people, I find watching the lazy and quiet underwater realm of a big aquarium exceptionally calming.

Adventurous reading allows one to escape a little from the provincialities of one's home culture and the blinders of one's narrow self.

With any luck, Heaven itself will resemble a vast used bookstore, with a really good cafe in one corner, serving dark beer and kielbasa to keep up one's strength while browsing, and all around will be the kind of angels usually found in Victoria's Secret catalogs.

Since I make my living as a literary journalist, not a book scout, I spend inordinate amounts of time either reading or writing.

I'm sometimes willing to put in vast, even inordinate amounts of time if I find a project that interests me.