To go along with my suggestion of sticking Starbucks in 24/7 Kinkos, I would like to add:

Someone needs to create a telepathic library. As you enter, there would be a gentle scan of your brain. Maybe it’d be true telepathy, maybe more like Rowling’s legilemency, but the practical upshot would be that after you left the entry, a series of markers visible only to you would guide you to a shelf of books that were all EXACTLY what you wanted to read, but couldn’t define well enough to come up with titles.

Privacy would be assured, of course, and the scans would be limited to reading matter. No one would be skimming your brain for your atm code or phone number, or what the scale REALLY said when you looked down at it that morning.

I could have used such a feature this weekend, when we went into Half Price Books. I knew I wasn’t in the mood for more Darkover, that I wanted something cozy, with a plot, perhaps a mystery, that involved cute houses and a neat town. But, you know, bookstores refuse to categorize that way. It’s not possible to walk in and find the Cozy section.

I left without buying a single thing.

The fact that I woke on Monday with a headache and sore throat (which I still have) should come as no surprise. I mean, I have to be sick if I couldn’t find anything to read in a bookstore. Right?