Ex Libris

If like likes like, then a glance at someone's bookshelves is all it should take to assess potential computability. Moosewood Cookbook, The Frugal Gourmet, Beard On Pasta. Diet For A Small Planet, Putting Food By, Living The Good Life. East Of Eden, Our Bodies, Ourselves, The Doonesbury Chronicles. There might be a pool of a couple of hundred books, maybe a few more, that mark people as being of a certain time, and a certain bent. If there is some intersection, there's a good chance there's potential there. The greater the overlap, the greater the potential. If there's no overlap, it's probably time to say, "Really nice place you've got here. Maybe we can get together for a picnic some time," and let it go at that.
Too shallow a litmus test? I don't think so. If the kitchens aren't in alignment, you probably won't like to eat what they cook, and they'll be suspicious of your spice palette. If you've been raised in the soil of fiction of the 1970s and they missed that boat, the foundation of mutual experience is narrow and shallow, ie weak and unstable.
Well, in the interests of library exploration, we have this wee bit of blog, and over time, I hope to share with you some of the best bits of my library. Some of these books you might recognize, and some you might know well already, and some you might loathe and some you might want to take a look at. Let's take a peek and see, shall we?