I just received an e-mail. I'm honestly not sure where on the continuum from spam to real e-mail this falls. On the one hand, if this guy actually reads my weblog and really did think that I would be interested in the book that a member of his organization has just published, then I feel bad calling it spam, and really do appreciate the tip. On the other hand, if it was this guy's job to find as many weblogs as he could and e-mail their writers to try and get free publicity for his book, I understand what he's doing but don't really feel compelled to act. And, what makes it somewhat fuzzy in my head is that, oddly enough, I saw the book in a Barnes and Noble over break, thought it looked interesting, and bookmarked it on Amazon so I could remember to check a few months from now when the library gets a copy and maybe read it. So here's the test: if the guy e-mails me back to tell me it wasn't spam, I know he's a reader, and if he is, I'll tell you the name of the book. If I hear nothing, he doesn't get his free publicity. Does that sound fair?

Greetings from a reader,

I thought you and your blog might be interested to hear about a new book by XXXX called XXXX (Publisher 2004). It talks about XXXX in America -- everything from XXXX, to XXXX, to XXXX trying to XXXX through the XXXX and XXXX. XXXX contends that the economic climate of the past twenty years, with its XXXX philosophy and XXXX mentality is, in large part, to blame.

The book has only been on the shelves for a couple of weeks, but has been generating some good dialogue, especially on XXXX.com. It has also been reviewed in XXXX and XXXX.

I encourage you to check out the website -- XXXX.com -- and XXXX's personal weblog -- XXXX.com/XXXXblog.html.

He is also making an appearance at Harvard on XXXX

All the best,