FAQ : Frequently Asked Questions

WHY  THE  NAME  ?
Short version :
In cyberspace, bookshelves never sag and will stretch to a Borgesian infinity.

Long version :
Books are part of my life. A few books stay on my shelves, most others move on. From 1988 to 1990 I had a weekly radio literary reading series on WKCR-FM in New York City and put a stream of authors in front of the microphone; some of whom are now household names. From 1996 to 1999 I was staff writer and then managing editor of AB Bookman’s Weekly  and my windowless office had shelves of books to review or list in Books Received or to include in recurring round-up articles on certain fields. While at AB , I began reviewing the occasional book for The New York Review of Science Fiction  or writing short Read This ! columns. From 2000 to 2003, I started an irregular reading log on the Avram Davidson website that became the endless bookshelf in 2004. In January 2007, I decide to make a website instead of simply listing titles.

AND THE SUBTITLE ?
Adapted from The Wind in the Willows :

     ‘Is it so nice as all that ?’ asked the Mole shyly, though he was quite prepared to believe it as he leant back in his seat and surveyed the cushions, the oars, the rowlocks, and all the fascinating fittings, and felt the boat sway lightly under him.
     ‘Nice ? It’s the only  thing,’ said the Water Rat solemnly, as he leant forward for his stroke. ‘Believe me, my young friend, there is nothing  — absolutely nothing — half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats. Simply messing,’ he went on dreamily : ‘messing — about — in — boats ; messing — —’
     ‘Look ahead, Rat!’ cried the Mole suddenly.
     It was too late. The boat struck the bank full tilt. The dreamer, the joyous oarsman, lay on his back at the bottom of the boat, his heels in the air.
     ‘— about in boats — or with  boats,’ the Rat went on composedly, picking himself up with a pleasant laugh.

SUSCEPTIBILITY :
I am susceptible to well-written mystery novels, formally inventive short fiction, biographies of unusual people, and the literature of the fantastic.

SOME ORGANIZING PRINCIPLES OF THE ENDLESS BOOKSHELF :
— Alphabetical
— Random Association : How random is random ? (see William Burroughs and Brion Gysin, The Third Mind )
— Lateral Thinking
— Lists (Sequential Thinking) :  Make an exhaustive list of everything you might do and do the last thing on it (Brian Eno and Peter Schmidt, The Oblique Strategies )
— Friendship

TWO QUOTATIONS :
"I deprecate that hard and fast line between fabulous animals and those that you all chance to have seen . . . What does it amount to, practically, but a line drawn round Regent's Park ?" — Lord Dunsany (The Collected Jorkens. Volume One , p. 222)
"Stop asking for what is not there and you start to see what is." — Salman Rushdie (in his introduction to the second volume of the Novels  of Samuel Beckett, in the Grove Centenary Edition)

A FEW THINGS I DON’T :
I don’t read or review "e-books" or "audio books". Printed books or advance galleys may be sent to : Temporary Culture, P.O.B. 43072, Upper Montclair, NJ 07043 USA.

I don’t kiss and tell. There are plenty of interesting book stories and incidents that may have to wait for my memoirs, Erinnerungen des Buchnarrs  (Recollections of a Book-fool).

I don’t answer questions about : private matters (I’ll draw the line where I choose) ; nor about unfinished fiction projects or essays, or other works in progress.

I don’t watch television and won’t write about it.

I don’t tolerate sloppy thinking or books whose authors cheat readers by withholding information.

I don’t appraise books that I haven't seen.

— Henry Wessells