What Your Library Tells You About Yourself

My personal library extends to more than a thousand books. They are lined up two rows deep on my bookshelves, with the old potboilers — mainly science fiction and mysteries — hidden behind the more impressive volumes.

Whenever a visitor looks at my bookshelves, sooner or later they always get around to asking me the same question: “Have you really read all of these books?”

I know they are asking this question because they are no longer accustomed to finding large numbers of books on display in someone else’s home. My usual answer…