Down To the N.-G.

Lately, I'm thinking I'd like to pare my "library" down to just a few books--not more than a hundred--that I can't do without. Looking back, it seems I have lived in these books. I think they've taught me how to think and what to look for. Or maybe most of them just reflect what I've thought all along. So, BOOKS TO KEEP:

The Bible, of course, but which one(s)?

And Shakespeare. If I kept all the Bibles and all the books by and about Shakespeare--

Oscar Williams's "A Little Treasury of American Poetry." This was the first book I bought when I went to work and earned my own money.

Of course, the Britannica, and the Great Books of the Western World, have become just so much lumber, because it's all online, or will be soon. I guess you could say that about most of the books in the world, but it isn't quite true. "To our daughter Sara Joanne Ramey, 1944" isn't on the internet. And so forth.

I'm tired already.