Everybody has one!

The book at the bottom of the pile on your nightstand. The one you really ought to read because the NYT Book Review told you to. But you have an inexplicable inability to pick this book up and crack it open. Perhaps you are intimidated by the intellectual superiority of the writer or the subject matter is painful to consider. Whatever the reason you initially put off reading this book: the longer you have delayed developing the necessary relationship with the book, the author and the topic, the less likely it has become that you will ever read it. Your antipathy for this amalgam of paper, glue, ink and cardboard has taken on a life of its own. It mocks you from underneath periodicals and the novel you picked up from the discount table at Barnes & Noble. My nemesis is "The World is Flat" by Thomas Friedman. I bought it because I was told to by some trusted book reviewer. I banished it to the bottom of the pile because I hate Friedman. So far, hate has triumphed over intellectual curiousity. And the law of diminishing likelihood tells me that the longer I wait, the less likely it is to happen. That book is going unread. I know it, you know it. And if Friedman ever reads this, he knows it. Time for the bookshelf in the basement and for a new book to take its place. Favored to take the slot at the bottom of the pile: The Black Swan. I never liked statistics, anyway...