Shelves full of voices

Henry James, Toni Morrison, Salman Rushdie: what do they have in common?

They are the names that appear most frequently on spines of books in my office.

I discovered this today while sorting books into shelves in my new office. James alone covers half a shelf, with Morrison and Rushdie covering slightly less shelvage. It would be difficult to trace the complex combination of circumstances that drew these three authors together on my shelves, but I know I'd love to put the three of them into a room for a few hours while I just sit in the corner and listen.

But then other authors might demand equal time. Derek Walcott and James Joyce, whose books cover similar amounts of real estate, might want to rub shoulders with the relatively equal Raymond Carver and Kate Chopin. There would have to be a room just for the authors represented by only one book: Olaudah Equiano and Hart Crane, William Gass and Henry Adams and Amos Tutuola and Gertrude Stein.

If authors were ranked based on the linear inches of library shelves they covered, then Thackeray would be a minor deity whose sandals John Kennedy Toole would not be worthy to untie. Today I placed a complete set if Thackeray's works in the giveaway pile simply because mold had set in. I'm allergic to mold or I'm allergic to Thackeray or possibly both.

I have closed the door on Thackeray but the other authors that fill my shelves keep demanding attention. I ought to be able to finish the sorting tomorrow if I can concentrate over the din of all those interesting voices.