I have about 170 linear feet of shelves filled with books, magazines, and reference works. This doesn't count the comics, which are largely kept in boxes. While most of the fiction runs to science fiction and fantasy, there are a lot of literature works as well as stuff that is completely off the wall. I am fond of complete, compact collections that I have run across, such as the complete works of Shakespeare in one nicely-bound volume, or the unabridged Mark Twain or Sherlock Holmes collected in two volumes each. These things were the sorts of things that wound up on the remainder tables at B. Dalton Bookstores, and were great values when I was in college.

My main goal now is shoving this stuff down my kid's throats. It ain't easy getting them started on something, but once they get rolling on an author I'm in business. My daughter is currently devouring Robert Asprin's "Myth" series, having finally polished off everything Terry Pratchett has written to date.

I have tried to make sure I had all the original kids classics like Mary Poppins, Dr. Doolittle, the Prydain Chronicles, The Once and Future King, the Narnia Chronicles, Tolkein (I actually READ Lord of the Rings to my kids at bedtime. It took weeks.) The whole Baum Oz series in the great Del Rey editions, and the hard-to-find Mushroom Planet books. The original Bambi. The original Pinocchio.* And of course Verne and Wells. Anything that has a popular movie attached to it is, in my opinion, a mandate for me to insure that my kids see the usually superior original books (usually--not always. The movie "Iron Giant" was far better that the original book in my opinion.)

There are, of course, huge gaps in my reading, especially now when I have little time to sit down and chew up a good book. There's a lot of good stuff out there I have not gotten to. I have never read anything in the "Redwall" series. I've only read one Louis L'Amour book. Most of my reading is keeping up with nonfiction stuff like journals and informational magazines.

P.S. Didn't know who Charles Neider or Joan Grant were before, but now thanks to the Internet--perhaps my favorite invention of all time--I now know who they are (or were--Neider died last July) and what they liked for breakfast.

*Vastly superior to the movie, in that an enraged Pinocchio flattens the smug Cricket into a gooey paste with a thrown hammer, and is thereafter haunted by its ghost. Yeah!