Philip K. Dick - Banished!

I spent all day selecting books to put into storage - Bookglutton is going on a diet.  I meant to count all the books going into storage but I forgot to start.  So far, I have nine boxes packed and sealed.  Nine boxes sounds like a lot, and for a normal person, I suppose it is. When Mrs Bookglutton returned home from work, she looked at the nine boxes and remarked that I had yet to make much progress.  (My guess - 600 packed.)

Most of my books I genuinely love.  So it is difficult deciding what makes the cut and what does not.

Philip K. Dick - he did not make the cut.  He had a limitless capacity to invent some really great material but he is, by far, the worst writer of anyone who is a giant in his or her genre.  I can't say his books brought me much pleasure.  They are hard to get through.  (I've never been able to finish Ulysses or Finnegans Wake, either.) See the movie of any PKD book instead of trying to read it.

Someone needs to rewrite all of his books.  I know there are copyright restrictions that would prevent this but someone really should redo all of his books.  He was crazy and on drugs - so very creative but the craft suffered terribly.  There are a bunch of stories about how Gordon Lish massively edited Raymond Carver's work and that reworking is what made Carver great.  I wish someone had done that for Dick.

I found a note written on a bookmark in my copy of VALIS.

Chapter 9 is a long way into a book for it to start to get good.

Even the biography had to go.

Up next:  I tackle books on history.

My assistant saved a copy of The Hound of the Baskervilles to add to his personal collection.