Every now and then the title of the daily e-mail from Very Short List urges me to not hit delete. Today’s culture du jour is about a project on Library Thing called “I See Dead People’s Books,” a growing list of the books found in the libraries of famous dead folks.

There’s something appealing about picturing yourself in, say, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s library and craning your neck sideways to see what he’s been reading. This website is no substitute for such an experience, but, like the bottom-trawling that internet browsing has become these days, there’s a chance to net a tasty morsel.

This article appears in Apr 30 – May 6, 2008.

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Kirk Kardashian has been a Seven Days contributing writer since 2006. He's the author of Milk Money: Cash, Cows and the Death of the American Dairy Farm, published in 2012 by the University Press of New England.