Hmmm, well the amount of points you have in mindreading don't matter. I've never put any points into mindreading (I see it as a waste, I just used a guide to figure out who is worth mindreading and mindread those people).

I know I didn't read the bookshelf first, I just walked up to the dude and did asked him to write it down, though I kind of knew I'd have to mindread him. It makes sense since the goblin can't speak.

Anyway, I didn't have any problems doing that. It seems peculiar that you cannot do the mindread. Do you mindread a lot?

Does anybody know if there's a maximum xp debt you can accumulate from mindreading? Kind of a longshot but if there is one, maybe you've hit it?