Some folks' days start way too soon. Not mine, luckily.

Mine, today, was spent putting together Ikea "Billy" bookshelves. They've improved since the last time I bought some of these, but... Let's face it, Ikea furniture is sort of miraculous for the money. But, still - if you're going to use Philips head screws? Make 'em out of hard metal, not soft. Anyone who's ever worked extensively with screws (and, hey, who hasn't?) knows that the ranking, from crappiest to bestest, is: slot head - Philips head - Robertson head. When I used to work in set dec, all I needed was a bunch of Robertson head screws and a Makita cordless drill fitted with a Robertson head driver and I could build the Taj Mahal in 15 minutes. The driver fitted the screw perfectly, firmly, and zapped that screw in within seconds. Most of my colleagues tended to over-drive them, but - who cares? - striking the set was seldom a precision operation. "Fore!", he yelled, as he swung the sledge hammer. Ikea seems to be using pure lead (or, maybe, lard?) for their screws, which makes the exercise a tad frustrating. Still...

The other problem with buying new bookshelves? Well, at least in my case, "new" is more accurately rendered as "more". Books, stacked on top of books, stacked on top of books. It's a bit like avalanche control around here. Yeah, there's less risk that I'll be killed when 40,000 pounds of paper falls on my head, but - that much more of my living space is taken up with book space. And what self-respecting bibliophile would have it any other way? Right?

O.K., so, run right out and buy "Saul Leiter: Early Color", "Julian Barnes: Arthur and George", "Philip Roth: The Human Stain", and...um...oh, for heaven's sake! Buy more books and read them!