Who gets most of your shelf space?

Cafe Society
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  1. James Bond: Ian Fleming (13), Kingsley Amis (1), John Gardner (14), Robert Benton (4). I have every Ian Fleming in Pan paperback, Signet paperback (10 first printings), and all of the Ian Flemings in the orignal British hardback editions, all but two with the original dust covers. The artwork on these has never been improved upon.

About a dozen memorabilia books. My favorite is a children’s book, the Dorling Kindersly complete James Bond. Dorling Kindersly is the company that produces those books filled with detaled photographs; this book is Bond geek heaven.

  1. Steven King: All of them.

  2. Isaac Asimov: The Robots/Empire/Foundation series, including a signed first edition of The Complete Robot.

  3. Robert B. Parker: Every Spenser, Jesse Stone, Sunny Randall

  4. John D. Macdonald: Every Travis McGee and a random few others.

  5. Charles Dickens: Every novel leatherbound, and one special edition that has every novel unabridged in a single book. It’s larger than my unabridged dictionaries.

  6. Dictionaries: About a dozen. The best general purpose dictionary for US use is the American Heritage College dictionary.

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Ooohhh, good thread. I’ll need to reflect on a number of people’s choices.

My shelves are:

Shakespeare. Various editions, commentaries, and theater-related works.

The Bible. Yep, it’s true. Gets to me every time I go back for it.

Dictionaries. English. And another bunch to cover my lapses in foreign speech.

Herge (Tintin). One of the modern artistic giants. Might not be saying much, but it’s our culture.

Tolkien. A great, even given my reservations about his literary and organizational talent.

Walt Kelly. Any humor that outlasts its creator has something for posterity… Thanks Walt.

Not to forget: Tove Jansson, Antoine de Saint Exupery, Algris Budrys, Mervyn Peake, Sir John Verney, and Spike Milligan.

Other authors who just don’t seem to be crowded by other folks off the shelves: L. Frank Baum, Arthur C. Clarke, Isaac Asimov, Jack Vance, etc.