Thanks to Hotmail, of all places, for this story about the Iraqi man who lived in a wall for twenty-two years. Reading this amazing story puts me, of course, into all kinds of Chekhovian reveries about whether I could have survived that long, and more importantly, what books I would have brought. (This man only had a radio and a copy of the Koran to keep him company.) I've realized, strangely enough, that although I read all the time and have strong feelings about movies and music, I don't have any strong attachments to any particular books, except perhaps Dante, Borges, and Sherlock Holmes. As a result, I'd probably just use my imprisonment to catch up on all the things I've been meaning to read, but haven't. At the risk of sounding like a canonical bore, then, I'd probably have gone with Homer, Shakespeare, Gibbon, the three mentioned above, and a Britney Spears calendar.