Have you made any progress?

It is a valid ISBN number. Must just be an obsure one, as ccrdmrbks suggested. Here is a link that might be useful: ISBN validity test

I had far more books in the past than now. I'm down to about 200 of them, and I sometimes wonder why I keep them--dogeared as many of them are. Pages are crumbling and falling out of some. Some pages are missing in some as well. I keep them around because they're comforting. I glance into them at times. Many have my marginal notes from student days. Who would want such overused books with my scribblings in them? So there they are, the chief dust-catchers around here, while I let the dust gather and do 99% of my reading by listening to audiobooks and have been doing that since 1983. I've listed my books on LibraryThing (the books I own) but haven't updated that in a while. Also there are my translations (half a shelf) as well as books by friends and relatives. My translations, though published, are not runaway best-sellers because they're on topics that are fairly specialized (successive approximation in math, problem-solving in schoolchildren, the child's concept of number). Not real page-turners.

For a while I was addicted to answering the Trivia questions at goodreads. But after forty-three jillion questions about the Harry Potter and Twilight books, my enthusiasm waned. I started skipping those questions, not realizing that when I did it was bringing my average down. I contributed several questions of my own and it was fun to create them, but the feedback was not good: it seems that many thought my questions were about too obscure books and were difficult, very difficult, or really really difficult. One of my questions is about the setting of Joe David Brown's novel Paper Moon: Was it set in Alabama, Indiana, Kansas, or Missouri? The answer is Alabama because I am referring to the book -- after all it's a trivia quiz at a book-reading site -- but most people choose Kansas because they have only seen the film where the setting was changed to that state. I knew it was a bit of a trick question, but I didn't know that people could get so irate when tricked! Then I learned that some participants have learned a way to cheat, and that's how they can answer 20,000 questions (roughly) with 99% accuracy. Sheesh! I gave up. I also liked the group "What's the Name of That Book?" -- at first. I was able to identify nine or ten books for people and it thrilled me that I could help and the queriers were pleased. However, I have gotten very little response to my own queries. I guess that once again it's the too-obscure thing. Most of the questions seem to me to be about fantasy/sci-fi/romance and YA titles -- genres that I know very little about but are obviously the most popular. Every site has its good and bad points. I was quite thrilled with goodreads in the beginning; but once the newness wore off, I began to go days and weeks and months without visiting it. I haven't yet got my library fully catalogued, and it's in a state of chaos -- unlike Pam's neatly tagged and well-reviewed library -- so I won't provide a link so you all can view it until I make it presentable. :-) I'd still say, though, that goodreads' good points outweigh its bad. Well, after I tell you all that you can't see my goodreads library, I remember that I keep running up against that very thing, "Private" libraries, at goodreads; and it quite irks me! I'm guilty of hypocrisy. I understand that some folk may have books that they don't want others to know about it; or they make their libraries private so they won't get unsolicited comments and friendship requests; or, like me, their catalogue is a work in progress; or maybe they're just shy...I don't know. But I like to look at other people's libraries and I'm disappointed when I can't. And when I read a review that impresses me, I like to look up that person's library; so when I hit that stone wall that says "Private," I sigh.