I think there’s something about the great sea of information that leaves one feeling perpetually belated. Or at least me. My increasing sense is that EVERYONE WHO IS ANYONE has already been in to books as art and I, like the nineteenth century rube showing up in town who marvels over flush toilets, am playing a pointless game of catchup.

(By the way, did you know that there’s actually a page on the web called “The History of the Flush Toilet.” Ain’t life grand.)

Tiffany Derewal posted a link on a comment, but I wanted to make sure it didn’t get buried. This great page shows the work of Jim Rosenau

A great shot from Rosenau’s page

Rosenau’s bio page has this to say: “A third generation publishing executive (descended from two generations of Random House VP’s), Jim grew up in a household with over 5,000 books.”

This explains why he has so many of them to destroy.

I may write more later. At the moment I’m reading through Pierre Bayards “How to Talk About Books You Haven’t Read” and remain uncertain as to whether he is a genius or an ass. A certain measure of both , no doubt. More ass than genius. The genius part comes in how he managed to make this thing a best seller. His general advice is that we only talk about books we haven’t read, so I guess I’m disqualified.