She wants her cup of stars.

One of the earliest compulsive habits I can remember is my Book Stack. Every time we went to the library, I’d come home with twenty or so books. I would then spend the next few hours of my life executing an elaborate ritual to decide the order the books had to be read in. It involved multiple rounds of “Eenie Meenie Meinie Moe” eliminations, supplemented by a baroque series of rules. This used to drive my mother up the fucking wall. I’d come in all upset out that I had to read three less exciting books before I could get to my Lloyd Alexander or Roald Dahl, and she’d be like, “Why don’t you just read what you want?” She always sounded a little more hysterical asking this; she was afraid she was going to have to take her eight-year-old to a shrink for OCD. I can’t blame her. My response to her question was usually “Because of the Book Stack! The Book Stack, Mom!”  If the Book Stack got knocked over or mixed-up by accident, it was devastating, like this profound dread down in the pit of my stomach. My mom was probably…probably a little bit right about me, actually.

In any case, I weaned myself off the Book Stack by the time I got to junior high. Something about reading in a more analytical way took the place of my creepy ordering compulsion.

These days I have a nerdy little booklist I keep (which, it seems, isn’t as nerdy a booklist as I thought, because fully three-quarters of my lj friends have similar nerdy little booklists, and by the way I love you people). Mostly I keep the list because when I graduated Reed I was overdisciplined and didn’t know what to do with myself—it was hard to read something and not want to write a paper or babble at someone. Setting up my little “reading goals” list helps me find new books and keeps me reading diverse things, and also fulfills my crazy little messed up OCD thing. I usually decide on a "challenge" book once a year (this year it was Moby-Dick, so mission accomplished), and then I make a little spreadsheet with a number of slots in each category. Look, at least I don't have tissue boxes on my feet, okay?

In any case, here is "Book Stack 2006." Things that I've reviewed or talked about are linked, for anyone burning to know my opinion.