I am still trying to read all my email, though now way behind (about 3 weeks
on my Hotmail a/c). Among the strategies I have adopted to weed out spam, I
am now ruthlessly deleting any e-mail whose subject line is not VERY
OBVIOUSLY related to me, my books, or some article I have written. As I’m
sure everyone knows, junk e-mail nowadays comes with bland, generic,
innocuous-looking subject lines: “In your neighborhood,” “Wanna hear a
story?” “Special request,” and so on. I am now deleting all such. To get
through to me, please furnish a specific, clear subject line. “Derb I
totally disagree with you about gun control” will get read; “Disagreement”
won’t. “Derb I think your book Prime Obsession should get a big fat prize”
will DEFINITELY be read; “Compliments on your achievement” will not. Sorry
to have to lay down the law like this, but I have to do something to stop
e-mail taking over my life.