80-89: Essays, or, Books as Boxes of Chocolates

As far as I can tell, the 80s are dedicated to collections of short works on assorted subjects. The two I chose from the public library were as follows:

Fraud by David Rakoff, which I picked because I mistakenly thought for some reason that he was the author of Every Person on the Planet, which I loved but isn't by him. Also, it is supposed to be funny and has pictures drawn by the author. It's the pictures that really are reminding me of something, although, not, as it turns out, the work of Bruce Eric Kaplan. Did Rakoff ever do cartoons for the New Yorker? Did he illustrate someone else's books? This is driving me slightly nuts, and the interwebs, which usually can answer such a question so quickly, are only interested in his writing, not his drawing, so if anyone can help me, I'd appreciate it. Meanwhile, I am looking forward to enjoying Rakoff's work, which gets stellar reviews. It appears to be a collection of essays most of which were originally written for This American Life, so that's a pretty good pedigree.

A Calendar of Wisdom, which I picked because it was compiled by Leo Tolstoy, who I correctly thought was the author of Resurrection and War and Peace, both of which I had greatly enjoyed. It seems to be a sort of semi-secular devotional, a collection of quotes and short essays by the great man himself and many others about how great wisdom is and of what it consists. Not the kind of thing one reads cover to cover, but I'm looking forward to leaving it around. I'm particularly interested in it because I am trying to write a devotional right now for my own personal use, because I can't find one that is exactly what I am looking for.

Before I went to the public library, I decided that I would try, whenever possible, to read from our own church library. When I hit the 200s, this will be very easy, of course, although pickings are slim elsewhere in the Dewey numbers, and only half our holdings are even assigned a number yet. But it so happens we have one book numbered 082, a slim collection of CS Lewis's ephemera, originally published in newspapers and magazines, and covering a wide range of topics. It is ironically titled Present Concerns even though it is about things people were concerned about in 1945. But CS Lewis was such a great writer he could make shopping for groceries interesting, so I will give it a fair trial.

As always, you can click on the images below to explore these books further.