Day Eight

I loved this one: "Books everyone should read." Who am I to say what people SHOULD read? Libraries used to try to maintain the literary canon without undue emphasis on ephemera and fads; pop fiction and music were largely avoided until the lasting titles have sorted themselves out. That was a bit elitist, but now the trend has turned to the opposite extreme. Retirees (such as I) watch, helplessly, the relentless weeding of old classics as well as items that haven't circulated in a couple years. Even the Bun E. Carlos CD collection has ended up in the Friends of the Library book sale. This, to me, is fundamentally wrong, and I believe there will be regrets down the line. The new director (not yet hired) should look very carefully at collection development. If e-books are truly the wave of the future, they should at least wait until the core titles resurface in electronic format before they're heaved into the dumpster.

And I should have added SHOULD to my list of trigger words.

 

I had twenty books chosen, but the photostitch app would only allow nine per line; hence, 18. And these are my favorite books. The only one that everyone SHOULD read is the last one, because I wrote it.