In these hand-written excerpts and notes, tracking his reading habits in those last few years, I've been given a sudden and surprising connection to my past.

Even aside from the sad beauty of the game’s gray world, I was thinking about it the other day and I realized part of its appeal: it reminds me, in its very existence, of what the Internet used to be.

Reading War and Peace, there is the sense of beginning one of the great experiences one might have in a lifetime. It is an enervating feeling, but also a melancholy one.

If Carl Jung had lived to see Google Search, he might have had a thing or two to say about how its auto suggest function is revealing the Internet's collective unconscious.

Getting one's picture taken for a book jacket must be a daunting task. How do you decide how to represent yourself to the reading public?

It goes like this: belittle a novelist's finest work to date - preferably by tossing around unsupported adjectives. Then, five or six years later, when the novelist in question brings forth his next book, complain loudly about how lame it is compared to his previous masterwork, which, it is to be inferred, you adored. Bonus points if you actually use the word "masterwork."

To build his or her collection, the collector of this niche item has to do nothing more than sit around and read. Didn’t find one? Well, maybe next time. No big deal. It was still a pretty good book, right?

Wands and fairies - er, faeries - were never my thing, but John Crowley's Aegypt Cycle is a revelation.