Late Fees

Or, Let No Man Write My Epigraph

Charles Taylor

Shakespeare and The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire and most of the thick new books tired his eyes. But he had no trouble at all reading Zane Grey, Max Brand, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Sax Rohmer, Rex Stout, Erle Stanley Gardner, or Ellery Queen. He went through everything they ever wrote.

--Marc Behm, The Eye of the Beholder

Sometimes I play the morbid game of asking what books I’d keep if I had to get rid of the others. A few years back I came close to having to make that choice. I may yet. Who could I stand to be alone with? What companions would I choose if I had to jettison the others? Friends of course, but they aren’t mentioned in the following because God knows I’d forget somebody. But having their books would be like having them around. What follows is a partial answer. And I don’t travel light.