Dear Dr. Boli: My Kindle reader suddenly started playing the Valse triste by Sibelius, and now it won’t stop. It just keeps playing the Valse triste over and over again. It’s kind of freaking me out. How can I make it stop? —Sincerely, Jeffrey Preston Bezos.

Dear Sir: You have not mentioned what it was that you were reading. Were you reading a particularly sad book, like something by Mrs. Henry Wood or perhaps Richard Nixon’s memoirs? Ebook readers are sentimental creatures most of the time anyway, but a steady diet of sad books can turn them from sentimental to morose if you are not careful. It sounds as though your Kindle may already be in the advanced stages. The only cure, or at least palliative, is to read only amusing books on the Kindle for the next few weeks. Fill it with the works of P. G. Wodehouse or Robert Benchley, and read your sad books on paper.