Riddles and exposure

Firstly, in reply to a comment from my last entry:

Why is a raven like a writing desk?

"'Because it can produce a few notes, though they are VERY flat; and it is never put with the wrong end in front!' This, however, is merely an after-thought; the Riddle, as originally invented, had no answer at all."
  -- Lewis Carroll, in the preface to the 1896 edition of AAIW.

Let me say (in a knowing tone of voice): "Aaaah." Thanks, Daniel :) - it's good to know that Lewis Carroll did write an answer to the riddle himself. Even if I do prefer the answer that I found :P

Last week the Internet Book List was launched:

The Internet Book List (IBList) is a hobby project started by Patrik Roos in early 2003. Its purpose is to provide a comprehensive and easily accessible database of books, since Patrik considers the Book to be humanity's greatest creation.

In other words, the book equivalent of IMDB, which is a great idea. It seems to rely solely on user submissions though, so it may take them a while to build a truly comprehensive database - they're up to just over 2500 book titles at time of writing.

Their front page, showing the 'Most Popular' searches/submissions is very heavily skewed towards SF/fantasy, and Neil Gaiman currently is 3rd most popular author, with two books in the top 5 titles. Finding this, and bearing in mind that I think IBList needs some publicity, I submitted a little message to him:

Neil,
I thought you might like to know that the Internet Book List (http://www.iblist.com/) has been set up, which is the equivalent of IMDB for books. Of the 1300 book titles so far databased, American Gods and Coraline are both in the top 5 most popular books, and you are third most popular author ;)
Hopefully you can plug this site in your journal, because I think they need a few more submissions at the moment!

Oh, and my blog as well if you like! (http://cyoung85.port5.com/blog/) Sorry, just being cheeky ;)

And he quoted, uh, the whole message in his online journal, which I didn't expect him to! That's why the last sentence was separated from the rest of the message by a new paragraph, for ease of snippability. Anyway, I'll extend a thankyou in that general direction :)

Regarding Dune (which I'm reading for the first time) I'm only 100 pages in at the moment, but definitely enjoying it. Unlike the first book of Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series - dammit, I've forgotten the name of it! - of which I read about 130 pages before abandoning it last year. I will return to it at some point, honestly (I've been assured it's worth the effort)... maybe when I've ploughed my way through all these?