I’m always intrigued by the ill-sorted books that lurk randomly on the shelves of hotels and inns. Our room in the Biltmore Hotel, for instance, contains a bookshelf on which can be found the following volumes:
• A Trial by Jury, D. Graham Burnett’s account of the experience of serving on the jury for a murder trial
• Viana La Place’s La Bella Cucina: How to Cook, Eat, and Live Like an Italian
• Who Says Elephants Can’t Dance?: Inside IBM’s Historic Turnaround, by Louis V. Gerstner, Jr.
• A Reader’s Digest Select Editions volume from 2000 containing condensed versions of novels by Nelson DeMille, Linda Nichols, Michael Palmer, and Jennifer Chiaverini
• Pandora’s Daughter, a novel by Iris Johansen
• Stormy Petrel, a novel (I think) by Mary Stewart
• The Runway of Life, a self-published book by Peter Legge whose genre was not apparent to me in the modest amount of time I was prepared to spend flipping through it
• Little Women
• Webster’s New Century Dictionary
No doubt a more imaginative person than I could write a witty poem or a wistful short story about these nine books, just as Mrs. T is capable of whipping up an edible meal out of whatever happens to be in our refrigerator at any given moment. Alas, all I can do is post their titles and wonder: did any of their authors ever imagine that the books over which they once slaved so hopefully would end up gathering dust in a resort hotel in Florida?
While we’re on the subject, here’s another question: will the day ever come when I stumble across a book of mine in a similar setting? And if I do, will I have the grace to smile wryly and reflect on the vanity of human wishes?
Terry Teachout on the arts in New York City
