It's just that now I'm in a weird place where I'm trying to decide what I want my public persona to be, now that I've got a business website with my full name prominently displayed, and am trying to sell a novel under that same name.

Me, too, Susan, and it's not to do with writing, really; if I should ever write anything and get published, I don't give a flaming damn. BUT as a soon to be teacher...well, I still don't give a flaming damn, but it's also something that I would rather not have to defend, you know? So where I used to not qualm about giving my whole name, I don't anymore.

Which has nothing to do with reviews, but still.

it never even occurs to me that the author might see what I say

Well - now you know. Our dirty little secret, she is officially out: we have to read Amazon reviews, because our editors and agents read Amazon reviews. Some of us read them because we're interested in what the people who are shelling out for our books, or taking them out of the library, have to say; some of us read compulsively; some of us read because, when crap like Lauren's editor's reaction goes down, we realise just how freaking naive it would be to pretend that Amazon exists in some sort of reader-only vaccuum.

So, thinking about it? I think maybe I am coming around to understanding why writers get so fired up about it, even if I think they're probably overreacting.

I get that. I just don't think that makes it inappropriate to write a review as a reader, for readers, without feeling obligated to worry about who else might happen to see it. I'm more careful about what I say now only because I have a foot in both camps. Like I said, I've never reviewed on Amazon and don't especially plan to, but I don't think it was wrong of me to criticize books on various fora as a reader writing for readers, and I don't see how it matters whether I did so as Susan W. whose identity is easy to find, as Ms. Fluffybunny with an anonymous yahoo account, or as Anonymous. (For the record, I'm pretty sure I've never been purely anonymous online.)

(And just to be really clear, I'm still sitting cheerfully on the fence. I can see both sides. If nothing else, maybe this amazon.ca fiasco will make editors realize that Amazon reviews are too easy to rig to be relevant feedback. But I still think it's valid for readers to be able to post comments intended for the consumption of other readers, and to be as identifiable or anonymous as their own comfort zone for online privacy allows them.)

I just don't think that makes it inappropriate to write a review as a reader, for readers, without feeling obligated to worry about who else might happen to see it.

Well, I'm coming from a different place - I have a thing, all mine and belonging entirely to me, no mutual ownership of anything express or implied, in which knowing that what I'm doing has other consequences forces me to look at those consequences, as well - and it doesn't necessarily have anything to do with Amazon or reviews. Let us agree to disagree.

And so, as I honestly desperately tried to do earlier?

Taking a moment, and moving on. In fact, moving offline entirely - this headache is now a steady determined series of painful starbursts and I need to get some work done, headache, editors, Amazon and all.

On an entirely different note:

So, earlier today, at the art museum, I found a book I really really want. Had to talk myself down from buying for $60 in the gift shop. (It's a big coffee table hardback color photos of art book). I can get it on Amazon new for $42, but there are also a number of used copies, for about $30, from Powells. Now, that's not that much a difference, but I also can't believe I'm considering spending this much on a book I probably won't look at very often (voices in my head: "But we wants it! our precioussss!"). Can anyone let me know what a condition of "good" means, to Powells? So I can judge if the "new" is worth the extra cash?

book-buying spree. Found a 50% sale at a used bookstore this weekend. End up with:

Baltimore Blues, In Big Trouble by Laura Lippman
Fast Women by Jennifer Crusie
A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole
The Divine Comedy 1950 Modern Library
Leaves of Grass by Whitman 1921 Modern Library
Fortitude by Hugh Walpole 1930 Modern Library
Victory by Joseph Conrad 1921 Modern Library
The Young Adventurer by Horatio Alger pulp undated
Hardy Boys #s 2,6,41 1950s-60s
Nancy Drew #s 1,2,4 1950s
The Bobbsey Twins in Tulip Land 1949
The Long Winter by Laura Ingalls Wilder
The Cloisters and The Hearth by Charles Reade undated Junior Classics series by Greystone Press
Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe undated Junior Classics series by Greystone Press
The Joy of Cooking 1943
Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook 1930

Oh, a good edition of Joy of Cooking! With the instructions for doing in lobsters!

My mother has a Joy of Cooking dated around 1952, and given to her as a wedding present that year. It's falling apart at the seams, but I covet it anyway.

meara, I got my brother an out of print art book from Powell's listed a s "good." It was in impressive condition. You could only tell it wasn't new because the plastic dustjacket was scratched the way they get after a bit of normal handling.