A Slight Delay

 Thanks to Bohemian Rhapsody for a post that will probably end up killing an afternoon. After the “Read The Rest of This Entry” link, you’ll find a list of 106 books that someone, somewhere, decided that people keep on their bookshelves to make them look smart. While I know some people use books as furniture (cf. Nicholson Baker’s “Books as Furniture” in The Size of Thoughts), I guess I’ve never felt the need to impress someone with my reading list. If I did, I probably wouldn’t keep Dinosaur Bob or Bloom County Babylon in good company with Shakespeare.

Books I’ve read and purchased, I’ve bolded; I’m sure that there are books here that were on everybody’s required academic reading at one time or another, but if I liked it well enough to buy it and read it again, it goes into that category. Books I read at school and never really read again, for one reason or another, I’ve italicized. The rest I’ve just left as is. Here goes nothing… (more…)