Peter, in what sense is your once-in-a-lifetime “Trollope for free” offer free?

The Way We Live Now is 800 pages. To download it, you’d need the cheapest paper from Staples at $3.77 per ream (500 pages) – and that’s the copy paper thinner than a John Edwards speech. And that’s before we factor in the print cartridge – another 20 bucks or so.

Or you could buy the Wordsworth Classics edition for $5.99.

Hmm. $5.99 for a handsome paperback with attractively illustrated cover you’ll treasure forever. Or at least twice that for a pile of dog-eared copy paper too thick to staple and in Courier font with no italics or proper chapter breaks.

Is this “free offer” some kind of subtle metaphor for the illusion of socialized health care or some such? I hope so.