I had just managed to heave all my books off their shelves and was looking forward to reshelving according to my new and improved system when it dawned on me why I had arranged them in their present (unsatisfactory) configuration six years ago. It is because — while too subtle to be detected at a first perfunctory glance — the shelves are not in fact of equal height, and so, much as I was and still am an Anne Fadiman about classifying books, at some point the books simply had to go where they FIT. Dear Heavens! To be thwarted by such a HUMDRUM reason!!! Gentle Visitors, I beg you, do not when visiting my room comment on why inconsequential genres occupy prominent positions, for tears there will be, and copiously so.