Spirit of the River

A few days ago I finally received an email about the foreign language books I supposedly sent to them (for the background see: First experiences with Fishpond's SmartSell ). It took them forever to send me the reply. The excuse was that they needed to get the info from the warehouse - but what kind of warehouse needs such a long time? Anyway, the list I received was a long list of books I've never heard of and they were all in languages I don't even speak. Instead of being greedy and dishonest, I told them that I had no idea who the books belong to as they are clearly not mine. That's the end of that story! Why they thought those books belonged to me I do not know. Maybe they arrived in a parcel on the same day as my books arrived and maybe the sender had forgotten to place a packaging slip into the parcel. It might be that Fishpond then assumed the books would be mine. I hope they will find the owner of the books and if not, pass them on to a charity or a library that...

“Some who have read the book, or at any rate have reviewed it, have found it boring, absurd, or contemptible, and I have no cause to complain, since I have similar opinions of their works, or of the kinds of writing that they evidently prefer.” - J.R.R. Tolkien on his critics J.R.R. Tolkien is the writer and linguistic who inspired me since I was a teenager, he's been part of my life for more or less 18 years. I always enjoy reading " The Hobbit " and " Lord of the Rings " and try to read at least one of his books each year. I also enjoyed a lot of his other works, including his more linguistic and historic works. In this post, I would like to share some of my favourite Tolkien quotes with you - and many of you will be able to guess who said what! J.R.R. Tolkien All that is gold does not glitter, Not all those who wander are lost; The old that is strong does not wither, Deep roots are not reached by the frost. From the ashes a fire shall be w...

Often, when I am not in a good mood, I wonder which books would help me to find new hope, to smile, to get a lighter heart again. There are hundreds and thousands of books out there, so I am sure there are many inspiring, motivating books - fiction as well as non-fiction. What are books that you can recommend for different moods? Are there any books that cheer you up?

Just to keep you updated: I still did not receive a reply about the non-English books they said I sent to them. So what happened there? Just bad customers service?

What is SmartSell? Fishpond New Zealand offers customers the option to pack their books, DVDs and games into a parcel (or more) and get them picked up by a courier. Fishpond will then list your second hand items on their website. They will sell it for you, send it to the buyer and you will receive the money (minus 17% fee) on either your bank account or your Fishpond account (which can then be used for future purchases on the site). My experiences with SmartSell Why I use it I decided that I need to sell quite a few of my books, DVDs and computer games but the thought of listing everything myself either by using Fishpond's normal selling system or by using TradeMe (which is a bidding site similar to eBay for New Zealand) wasn't a nice one. I've done things like that before and right now I don't have the time and energy to do this. I simply wanted an option to get everything out of the house and then receive some money in return. Fishpond's SmartSell pro...

To Lucy Lawless:  Thank you for all the work you have done and everything you will still do in the future - on the screen and off the screen. Thank you for inspiring people all over the world and thank you for being a positive influence in my life. The background for this post: I was just reading a list about 100 things to do when you are sad and one of the points was to reach out to the people who inspire you but do not know that you exist. For me, blogging seems the only way to reach out in some way - in a way that the people who inspire me might not know about either even if I tried to get the link to my blog to them. If you aren't really lucky, it is hard to tell people how they inspire you in a way that they actually get to see. If I was a rich person, I could try to do some research about where my special people are at a certain time, hire a plane or a big advertisement space in a city and put a message on an "ad" or let a plane pull a message behind it. Bu...