Must.  Stop.  Buying.  Books.

This is getting ridiculous.  Here, in no particular order, is what is presently on my book shelf, waiting to be read:

• 1959 – The Year Everything Changed (Fred Kaplan)
• The Land Where the Blues Began (Alan Lomax)
• Rhythm-a-ning; Jazz Tradition and Innovation (Gary Giddins)
• The Great Influenza (John Barry)
• Fiasco (Thomas Ricks)
• Cobra II (Michael Gordon)
• The Freshour Cylinders (Speer Morgan)
• Inherent Vice (Thomas Pynchon)
• The Girl Who Played with Fire (Stieg Larsson)
• The Savage Detectives (Roberto Bolano)
• A Peculiar Grace (Jeffrey Lent)
• The Gathering (Anne Enright)
• The Road Home (Rose Tremain)
• The Journal of Jules Renard
• Collected Works (Whitney Balliett)
• American Musicians (Whitney Balliett)
• Living With Jazz (Dan Morgenstern)
• Birdmen, Batmen, and Skyflyers (Michael Abrams)
• The Civil War (Harry Hansen)
• So You Want to be a Solider (Shaun Grenan)
• The Book of Kehls (Christina O’Hagan)
• Muscular Dystrophy – the facts (Alan Emery)

Looking at this list, I am struck by the fact that there aren’t many novels on it.  When did I become a nonfiction guy?  I should also point out that the last five are for research for possible topics for the next novel.  (Which means, at least, that they’re tax-deductible.  Every cloud, etc.)