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Did Warren play at Bonnaroo? I would have loved to see that show. Novella, Old and in the Way - wow! I don't know what kind of guy Grisman is, but I've been wearing out my copy of Shady Grove. Jerry's voice is, to my ear, perfectly suited to those old-time tunes. If you haven't heard...

I have to tell you that A Gentle Madness isn't really a first-hand account written by a bibliophile, though Basbanes is definitely a "book-person". It is more a semi-detached look at the building of some of the great private and public collections, and the personal urges which drove them. It...

I think I'm going to have to declare a tie: One was Cowboy Junkies at the Whitaker Center (a nice, small-ish, acoustically perfect little arena) for the Open tour; the other has to be Hot Tuna two years ago at the same venue. They had a mandolin player with them and they were smokin'. I...

I haven't read Ex Libris, but I would imagine that if you liked it, you would also like Nicholas Basbanes' A Gentle Madness. It's a look at bibliomania from the outside. I think that my next read will probably be A Pound of Paper, for what that's worth.

I don't know if I can help with the fiction side of things, but Simon Singh wrote a very readable introduction to the field call The Code Book. I know there is another big non-fiction book out on code-breaking by a guy (I think the name is Kahn), but I'm not sure of the title. However, one of...

At a rough guess, 8,000 - 10,000. The collection is comprised mostly of literature (about 50%) and large sections of history, history of science and technology, mysteries, sci-fi, children's lit., philosophy, and biography. I really should count them some day, but there are just too many...

There are a couple of ones I get fairly often from my bosses. One usually begins with "How would you like to go to . . . tomorrow?" The ". . ." is usually at least 6 hours away. The last one was about 8 hours away. The other is "I've got to get you some money one of these days." The...

Yeah, Little, Big was definitely odd, disjointed, and confusing - but, there was definitely something compelling about it, anyway.

I am not sure that I can say that I have had any penpals, exactly, though I have to admit to being a compulsive letter writer for 20+ years. The reason for the hesitancy is that I was friends with all my "penpals" before I started writing to them. The people have changed now and then, but I've...

You are on to something there, Novella. I took that aspect of the novel to be a sort of trick that Eco was playing on his readership, and something of an homage to Borges. The big difference is that Borges' wonderful interweavings of "fantasy" and "reality" rarely were more than a few pages...

Catalyst, I, for one (a red-blooded male of the species), find tongue piercings decidedly unattractive. For one thing, these days you've got to figure that the thing has no signifigance for the girl other than that she "thought it was cool" or "all my friends have them". BORING. I also don't...

I very much agree. I read Foucault's Pendulum some years ago, and quite enjoyed it. Plus, I really liked the idea of the "cultural detective". At any rate, I didn't try to track down any of the references or translate any of the foreign phrases. That way lies madness and ruin. Once you've...

Most of my books are organized by either subject, author, or genre. For instance, to my left, right now, I have books on books and the history of science. At about 10 o'clock is a bookcase full of "serious fiction". At 11 o'clock is the oddities section. To my right, coffee table books...

Don't be afraid. I am just the "Ghost of Compulsive Book-Buying Future". For what it is worth, the knowledge that I have more books than I could read in my lifetime has slowed me down. A little.

Technically, I'd have to say several thousand. I mean, every book I own I bought with the intention of reading, so that should make my TBR list something on the order of 3,000 - 4,000, at a rough guess. In reality, though, there are only about a half-dozen on the front burner.

See, it's stuff like that that convinced to never lend or borrow books. Everyone I know is well aware that this is a very strict policy with me. They simply don't ask to borrow books; neither do they ask me if I want to borrow anything of their books. It costs me a little money to keep...

I never, and I mean never, lend books to anyone. I also never borrow books. If someone wants a book that bad, I'll give them a copy rather than lending it.

Back in the 60's or 70's Ballantine Books put out a whole series of books about WWII in all theatres and branches. I particularly remember the one about the Allied push to take Rome which stalled at Monte Cassino. Escape from Colditz by P.R. Reid is a wonderful account of the indominable...

Sounds to me like it might have been an example of "spirit" writing (the early 20th Cent. equivalent of channeling). You might try researching that topic. Or, of course, you could try sites like www.alibris.com or www.abaa.com and search under Atlantis or mysticism. In the mean time, I'll do...

I read Rubicon Beach quite a while ago. I really liked it, and think there is prob'ly a valid comparison to be made to Murakami. Several passages made it into my "common-place" book. I've also read his book Tours of the Black Clock, which was somewhat harder to grasp.