I only got the book once and chose for her to read it. She followed a path and was never seen again.

I've gotten this one several times where a VV comes across a monkey at the food bin. The choices are: Should he/she scare off the monkey or wait and see what happens. All three times I chose to wait and see. Turns out the monkey just wants a handful of berries. He gives the VV some herbs or plants to eat and he/she gains a lot of healing ability (adept doctor level). However, it sounds as if it could have negative outcomes too according to everyone's posts here.

Twice I have gotten a crate or barrel that looked like it was carefully sealed and I've opened them to get cute little toddlers. :]

I opened a badly weathered crate just once. It had a giant venomous spider than bit the villager. He was a child and survived the bite. Since then, I don't open crates in bad shape.

I'm probably too cautious for my own good.