OK, Rebunkers – it’s time to get it back in full swing. Sort of. I want to try an interactive post, so this will require your participation. All of us are readers. Were we not, we would not be part of this little sub-community. I feel as if I spend most of my waking hours reading. I am always in the middle of ten books, I have more magazines than I know what to do with, and every nook and cranny is filled with newspapers, journal articles, and various printouts from websites. Yet I am sure I am not alone when I say that I have shameful gaps in my reading.

So here is the question on the table: Name three books that you are embarrassed to admit that you have NOT read. This is not one of those interview questions where you are asked your worst flaw and you respond with the self-serving “I am a perfectionist who cannot rest unless the job is done right.” So don’t come along and express your remorse at not having read the Bible in Hebrew as if you have read everything else of any merit whatsoever and you are self-flagellating for our edification.

Here is my list:

1) Uncle Tom’s Cabin. I know, I know, so much of my work is in southern history, and this may be the most important novel in American history, so how can I not have read it. I can refer to it in conversation. I can talk about its plot. But this is all received wisdom. I have not sat down and read it myself.

2) The Education of Henry Adams. Widely considered by those who know to be the greatest American memoir-cum-autobiography, during the education of Derek Catsam I simply have never taken on this one. Please don’t tell anyone.

3) Moby Dick. It’s about a whale, right? Call me a moron, Ishmael.

So that’s my list. I narrowed it down to ten initially. If the conversation goes anywhere, I’ll give a few others. Feel free to talk about whether canons matter, whether there should be a canon, or whether the whole idea is obsolete given the sheer number of great books that a hundred people would put together as canonical. In the meantime, what is your list?