Forget looking in the medicine cabinetwe all know that the best way to learn about someone is to peruse his bookshelves! And what better way to find inspiration for your own reading? If youre looking for a new source of summer reading inspirationor at least a good laugh--take a peek at what a few literary greats had in their own libraries.
ee cummings
Aside from surprises like Cooking with a French Touch and a poetry anthology that (naturally) included his own work, cummings had an extensive collection of letters from other illustrious authors. Other eccentric standouts from cummings collection:
- Communism with the Mask Off
- Dance Index: A New Magazine Devoted to Dancing
- The Cultivation of Christmas Trees
- The Dot and the Line: The Romance of Lower Mathematics
F Scott Fitzgerald
Would you have pegged Fitzgerald for a hopeless romantic? If you saw The Best American Love Stories of the Year and From Ritual to Romance, you might suspect that Fitzgerald would love a Nicholas Sparks novel. Heres what else youd find on his shelves:- Favorite Recipes of Famous Women
- Mystery Men of Wall Street: The Power behind the Market
- History of the United States in Words of One Syllable
- Cream of the Jug: An Anthology of Humorous Stories
Ian Fleming
When he wasnt busy crafting 007 novels, Fleming explored a wide variety of interests from science to architecture. Inspiration, perhaps, for all those James Bond gadgets?
- X-Rays and Electrons: An Outline of Recent X-Ray Theory
- The Garden of Kama, and Other Love Lyrics from India
- Birds of the West Indies
- The Laws of Ping Pong
If you could peruse a famous authors library, whose would you choose?
