Shelf 1: unread or partially read. Most anticipated: Elements of Style, Infinite Jest, Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs, Envisioning Information (Tufte), Drawing on the Artist Within (Betty Edwards)
Shelf 2: nostalgic SF, mostly William Gibson and Larry Niven, who I devoured as a young teenager, mostly pilfered by sticking books down my trousers in WHSmiths. About 21 of the Niven books here take place in the same, relentlessly consistent universe, set against the same future-history, and featuring the same alien species, inventions, and sometimes characters too. This dedication to exploring the implications of a set of givens was something that appealed greatly to me, coming in many ways to define my own personal definition of SF.
Shelf 3: More classic SF. Vonnegut, Alfred Bester's brilliant handful. Silverberg's much overlooked early novels. (I have a special fondness of 'Up The Line') I Am Legend. Snow Crash, Poe, A tiny smattering of Ray Bradbury's ageless and beautiful prose.
Shelf 4: Technical nonfiction, mostly classic software books, like The Mythical Man Month - 30 years old and delightful for the astonishing amount which is still relevant to the mistakes software projects continue to make to this day; Design Patterns - dated but helped to change the way we think; Art of Unix Programming; Code Complete (I'm thinking of buying the 2nd edition just for the deltas); Hackers and Painters - collected essays of Paul Graham; plus The Visual Display of Quantitative Information (Tufte) (I just discovered that 'quantitative' has one more syllable than I though it had), '7 habits', and 'A Speeder's Guide to Avoiding Tickets'
Shelf 5: More SF. Ian Banks, Greg Bear. Is it just me, or have they both got worse in their later books? More accomplished on many levels, but somehow blander for it. Maybe an experienced author regards each new book as a huge project, into which they pour all their burgeoning resources, and as a result each successive work is more rounded out, and less open to experimentation. Maybe I just have simple tastes. Oh, but in the middle there: Enders Game! Accelerando! The Forever War! Lovely, lovely books.
Shelf 6: Not quite so much SF. The Odyssey, The Epic of Gilgamesh, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Fear and Loathing, On the Road, Great Gatsby, Flatland, Brave New World, The Human Stain, Call of Cthulu, Neal Stephenson's Quicksilver, A Canticle For Leibowitz. The ones in the right column aren't mine.
Shelf 7: Various novels and nonfiction. Catch 22, probably the one book I've bought more copies of than any other. The Portable Jung; Catcher in the Rye. Hang on - '7 Habits' again? Ohdear. Dawkins next to Darwin, The Origin of Species, which I think I would rank as the most important book ever written, his theory being a first step on the long road to understanding who we are.
Shelf 8: Graphic novels: Best of 2000AD; Watchmen; From Hell; League of Extraordinary Gentlemen; Dark Knight Returns. Also, some nonfiction: The Story of Art; Godel Escher Bach; History of Western Philosophy; Supercade - a beautiful coffee table book of vintage videogames.
