"I do not pretend that uploading or downloading unpurchased electronic books is morally correct, but I do think it is more of a grey area than some of your readers may": an online book pirate speaks.

• What kind of person decides to build a bookshelf out of vintage Penguin paperbacks?

• Did data-dense books such as railway timetables look better before designers got involved?

• A Single Man is Christopher Isherwood's masterpiece, according to the blurb on the back of a new edition of A Single Man. Much more interestingly, John Self agrees.

• The least likely setence-opening of the day comes in a fine response by Mark Athitakis to Wayne Gooderham's Guardian blogpost on the therapeutic value of Saul Bellow: "So, just like Herzog, James Frey..."