Sunday, March 13, 2005

Book Taxonomy

I just started Italo Calvino's If on a winter's night a traveler for my frame tales seminar. I'm only about ten pages in, so I don't know what I think of it yet. It starts out with a trip to a bookstore, something I can definitely relate to, so I'm optimistic. Of the few pages I've read thus far, Calvino devotes several to the different types of books that cry out to you as you're browsing a bookstore. Since I'm a bookworm and a bookstore whore and I totally relate to this list, I just have to share. (Note: the bulleting is mine, not Calvino's.)

  • Books You Haven't Read
  • Books You Needn't Read
  • Books Made for Purposes Other Than Reading
  • Books Read Even Before You Open Them Since They Belong To The Category Of Books Read Before Being Written
  • Books That If You Had More Than One Life You Would Certainly Also Read But Unfortunately Your Days Are Numbered
  • Books You Mean To Read But There Are Others You Must Read First
  • Books Too Expensive Now And You'll Wait Till They're Remaindered
  • Books ditto When They Come Out In Paperback
  • Books You Can Borrow From Somebody
  • Books That Everybody's Read So It's As If You Had Read Them, Too
  • Books You've Been Planning To Read For Ages
  • Books You've Been Hunting For Years Without Success
  • Books Dealing With Something You're Working On At The Moment
  • Books You Want To Own So They'll Be Handy Just In Case
  • Books You Could Put Aside Maybe To Read This Summer
  • Books You Need To Go With Other Books On Your Shelves
  • Books That Fill You With Sudden, Inexplicable Curiosity, Not Easily Justified
  • Books Read Long Ago Which It's Now Time To Reread
  • Books You've Always Pretended To Have Read And Now It's Time To Sit Down And Really Read Them
  • New Books Whose Author Or Subject Appeals To You
  • New Books By Authors Or On Subjects Not New (for you or in general)
  • New Books By Authors Or On Subjects Completely Unknown (at least to you)

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

So . . . I want to know which books fall in the categories. You're such a tease!

Frank said...

I just put down the categories Calvino wrote. What books go where is up to you!

Anonymous said...

But I wanna know your picks.

Frank said...

Ahh, I see, Vince. That's a whole other post for another time. I'm really going to have to think about it.