Notes of a Nervous Man

I have a book shelf that, while big, is no longer quite big enough to fit all the books I like. This means that every time I finish a book, I find myself having to decide whether it is worthy enough to make it to my main book shelf. Periodically, I'll pick a book at random from my shelf and reread it to see if it's good enough to retain its most favored status. You know, it's sort of like the playoffs for books! If the book loses, it goes into my closet, or gets exchanged for something else at a used bookstore.

And that is how I ended up reading Notes of a Nervous Man. I expected this book of essays from the early 1990s by James Lileks not to make the cut, but surprisingly the humor held up well. If you can find it, I would recommend reading it. It's a collection of humor columns from Lileks' work with the St. Paul Pioneer Press and other papers. It turns out that the 1990s angst isn't all that different from today's angst. Angst is angst.

I'm not quite sure if this will make it back into the main book shelf, but I'm not ready to sell it either. I think I may instead need a second bookshelf (sort of an NIT to my main bookshelf's NCAA) for books like this.

At any rate, enough madness. Lileks is funny. You should read him.