Authors & Titles

love books¹ and I love to read. Here's some evidence of my reading tastes. Pick your category and click on "Author" or "Title" for that subset of the books in my collection. If it isn't immediately obvious why a title is under a particular category, keep it to yourself!

To retain a slight air of mystery I have barred casual access to some titles in my collection (more than one of which can be found at the Neglected Books page). Other opinions do exist, of course, concerning the 100 best novels (Take 2!) and the 100 best works of non-fiction. (Thinks: how silly is that, to rank non-fiction?)

Opinions doubtless divide, too, around the idea that only seven or so basic plots exist: Overcoming the monster, Rags to riches (or, in the case of The Space Merchants, t'other way round), Quest, Voyage and return, Comedy, Tragedy, and Rebirth. Christopher Booker also adds both Rebellion and Mystery to the mix. His book "The Seven Basic Plots" took around 34 years to research and write, and is most enticing.

Computers being fonder of mindless labour than I am, I'm currently using Alpha Five but am now considering various migration options. The front runner is currently the database component of Open Office. I like the price and the cross-platform capability.

Footnote

¹  This is currently neither a book shop nor a lending library, though that philosophy may mutate if I need a retirement hobby. As the man sitting in his book-lined study said "Only fools lend books; all these books once belonged to fools!" If you think the titles yield any insight into my psyche, you could be right.