Musing Monday...and a Subject of Note

Let's check out this weeks Musing Monday question, as always, from the desk of MizB at Should Be Reading...

This week’s musing — courtesy of http://abookandashortlatte.wordpress.com – asks…

Do you take notes while you read?

Notes...No.

See, they even start with the first letter, so it must be the right answer!

I used to take some notes for my reviews but, as you can see if you read the recent ones, I gave that up.
Seriously, I used to write a few things on post-it notes, but not much. An idea here, a name of a character there. And arrow pointing to a few lines from the book that I might want to quote. Now, I gave up on the writing part..my handwriting is so bad I often couldn't read them..and just use the little arrow post-its to mark a line. Assuming I have the post-its with me. On e-books, I sometimes use the "highlight" feature, but usually forget to look back at the ones I highlighted.
So no, I am not really a note taker.
And NEVER in the book.
That is a mortal sin.
Really.
OK, on a totally different subject, I just wanted to vent for a minute about a book related subject that has been in the news recently.
Bad enough was the article in recent week about a company that would sell you a review. Are you an author who wants 5 or 20 or 50 reviews posted to Amazon? NO problem, just buy the package you want. Was there a promise that they would all be 5 star? Well, they were!

I have written about this before.
Go to Amazon and look at a book that is not hugely popular. OK, a book you never heard of.
If it has a 4 1/2 or 5 star average, you are on the right trail. Read the reviews. It is easy to pick out the ringers.

"This is the best book that I have ever read. I laughed, I cried. It should win the Noble Prize. The author is a genius!"

You get the idea.
Then go look at the reviewer's other reviews.
There won't be any. Maybe one.
I assume they create a new account for each review.
That is the number one..or two..giveaway.

And then there is the disturbing "sock monkey reviews" episode you may have been reading about.
An author, an actual bestselling author, created fake identities online and went out, praising his own books and running down the ones of other authors. Posting bad reviews for their books, writing glowing ones under his fake names for his own.
Creepy.

And sad.
As someone who writes reviews and read reviews I find it all very sad. Should I even bother to post my reviews on places like Amazon or Goodreads or Barnes and Noble? Do readers now assume any good review may be a fake and any bad one might just be trying to undermine the author? And can I believe the reviews I read? I will tell you from experience..no, often you can not. I have read a book that got good reviews (yes, maybe TOO good) and found the book almost unreadable. On second look, those glowing words started to look a bit tarnished.
As someone wrote about this..the Internet giveth and the Internet taketh away. Buyer Beware!