Ralph Waldo Emerson once said, “A man’s library is a sort of a harem,” and book lovers know a person’s personal library reveals much about the owner. Reading a recent NYTimes.com article titled “What’s Fauci Reading? We Take Another Look at Celebrity Bookshelves” compelled getting out the magnifying glass and examining the accompanying photograph of Anthony Fauci sitting in front of his bookshelves. Books were stacked on top of books and family photos, baseball cards, and small mementos propped in front. In short, Fauci’s shelves closely resemble mine, even down to the baseball cards.
Former national security chief Susan Riceâs bookshelves appeared equally active, sported a rolling ladder to reach the upper shelves, and included a number intelligence-related books, like âWarnings,â by Clarke and Eddy (âthese two veterans of the White House National Security Council tried to offer, in this 2017 book, a way to anticipate the unexpected calamities that seem to come from nowhere but have huge repercussions â like, yes, pandemicsâ) and âSpycatcher,â by Peter Wright (âAnother intelligence officerâs account, this one from the former assistant director of MI5. It is full of untold Cold War storiesâ).