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...

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?

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...