I’ve done this with a certain amount of hesitation, but I have recently become an Amazon Associate. That means that if people click to Amazon from a link from my blog, and end up buying something, I get a certain commission. I’d realised that there were quite a number of people clicking on the links that I provide to books and realised that it could be a way of enabling me to buy some books, something that I am going to need to do soon but don’t exactly have the resources for. I hesitated about this as I know that there are ethical issues involved in Amazon taking over the market, pushing out small booksellers, and even making life difficult for publishers. Plus I don’t like the idea of commercialising my blog. But the circumstances of my life at the moment seem to outweigh my ethical quibbling and questions of taste. I didn’t intend to post adverts, but then realised that if people go to Amazon from my blog, even if it is to buy something completely different, I still get paid a commission if they buy something. So, I’m placing a general link in the sidebar (under “Recent Comments”: if you are intending to buy from Amazon anyway, you could consider clicking from there.