Larry, I tried everything I could think of, including just pasting your profile, and no type of code would work, link, bold, no HTML. At the very least, I'd like to be able to make the font big enough to see. I only looked at the part of the code that is in the text box. Is there anything else you changed somehow? Do you know anyone else with a profile with code in it? Paul's profile used to be jazzed up and no longer is. Maybe someone is disabling them manually.

I realized I had a problem with books when I looked at renting a larger apartment because I could buy more bookshelves if I moved there . . . . I did a couple of things to winnow out the books collection. Over the past 5 years, I've removed about half the books--I'm down to about 1,000 books now, and a firm one in, one out policy. First, I took all the books in one category, say, children's books. Then I sorted them by "absolutely must keep," "would like to keep" and "can easily get rid of." Because when you look at your books as a whole, you can't think of ever being able to part with a single one. But when you really look at a smaller sub-set of them, you realize there are a few you will always want to keep, some you really like, and others that you are not so attached to. You can set a goal if you like. Weed out 10 per cent of each category, or 15 per cent, or whatever feels right to you. Donate/sell those books that you are comfortable in letting go. Then, in three months, revisit the books and see if you can't let go of 10 per cent more. Or 5 per cent. In my case, I had determined to get rid of two large bookcases, so the books I could keep had to fit in the remaining bookcases. It's good to set some sort of limit on the books--either by number of books, or the space you allow them to take up. Another thing I would do was go to a single bookcase and count the number of shelves in that bookcase. If the bookcase had six shelves, I needed to remove six books from it. Not one book from each shelf, mind you, because there was an entire shelf of Jane Austen novels and books about Miss Austen that aren't going anywhere, just six (or five or three or whatever) books from the entire bookcase. Again, this helps to focus you on which books are life-long keepers, which are nice friends, and which are more like Facebook buddies that you are glad to hear from on occasion. I also had a lot of book series--mystery series, detective series, science fiction series. While I kept a few of these, for most of them I kept just the first book in the series. If I want to re-read the entire series (and I do, on occasion), then I can get the rest from the library. For cookbooks, I determined that a small, two-shelf bookcase was going to be their home. Then I weeded through the collection, picking out the ones I use the most, and all the chocolate cookbooks (because you never know when a chocolate attack will strike and what ingredients you will have on hand at the time) and a few cookbooks I've purchased on my travels as mementos. I did copy a couple of recipes I use a lot, but that were pretty much the only one I ever used from certain cookbooks, and put them in a binder with clipping from newspapers and recipes printed out from the internet.

Sometimes I get a feeling that the author stopped at a certain part of the writing. Perhaps a change of pace? That is a natural place to stop. (Actually, they just may have been interrupted!) At night, I can fall asleep in the middle of a sentence and wake up with the book slipping under the covers! Normally, I try for the end of a chapter but there are some books that have to be read in one go. I recall an all-nighter with "The Godfather" after scolding my husband for doing just that! Totally un-put-downable.

I've now tried both GoodReads and LibraryThing. So far I prefer the latter simply because more of the books I have read are in the database. I also like being to choose the actual cover of the edition I've read. Of course it's not perfect. I disagree with how it handles the issue of dates of publication. I personally prefer to note the year in which the work was first published, not necessarily the edition which I read. Other people may not think this is particularly important. The downside with LibraryThing of course is that it is a pay site. I have not reached my 200 book limit (I only entered a few years of books). Once I reach 200 titles, then I would have to pay $25.00 to continue. I haven't decided whether I am willing to pay for that privilege. GoodReads is a very good site. I didn't know that I could block on the "friends", quizzes, etc. Many people would enjoy those aspects of the GR experience. This may sound strange, but I am not particularly interested in "rating" books. If I like a book, I will remember the experience of reading it. Only rarely do I force myself to finish a book I don't like.