Following the appearance of the photograph of Toni Morrison’s library, we decided to attempt a deep reading of the shelves. Hopefully, this is the first of a series to discern and reveal the titles and authors. We start randomly in the top right. #ToniMorrison 1/10

ROSA PARKS (Penguin Lives Biographies), Douglas G. Brinkley (2000)

THE IRON TRIANGLE: Inside the Secret World of the Carlyle Group, Dan Broidy (2004)

SELF-PORTRAIT: Book People Picture Themselves, Burt Britton (1976) Note: Morrison’s “self-portrait” is on page 37. 2/10

And here is Toni Morrison’s self-portrait given to Burt Britton of the Strand Bookstore in New York in 1974. (She appears on the same page as Reynolds Price.) 3/10

Next on the shelf:

FRANZ KAFKA: A Biography by Max Brod (1947/1963 Shocken paperback edn)

THE SCHOOL OF HAWTHORNE, Richard H. Brodhead (1990)

THE IMPOSITION OF FORM: Studies in Narrative Representation and Knowledge, Claudia Brodsky (1987) 4/10

PUNCTUATION book can not identified. (A few others are also problematic...)

CULTURAL HAUNTING: Ghosts and Ethnicity in Recent American Literature, Kathleen Brogan (1998)

EDOUARD MANET: Rebel in a Frock Coat, Beth Archer Brombert (1996) 5/10

IN PRAISE OF ANTIHEROES: Figures and Themes in Modern European Literature, 1830-1980, Victor Brombert (1999)

BRIDGING THE DIVIDE: My Life, Senator Edward W. Brooke (2007)

READING FOR THE PLOT: Design and Intention in Narrative, Peter Brook (2012) 6/10

A TASTE OF POWER: A Black Woman's Story, Elaine Brown (1992) This may be a self-published edition or a bound manuscript; trade edition pictured below.

KAFKA WAS THE RAGE: A Greenwich Village Memoir, 
Anatole Broyard (1993)

THEORY OF THE AVANT-GARDE, Peter Bürger (1984) 7/10

THE DEATH AND THE RETURN OF THE AUTHOR: Criticism and Subjectivity in Barthes, Foucault and Derrida, Seán Burke (1992)

LESSONS IN BECOMING MYSELF, Ellen Burstyn (2007)

FREEDOMS GIVEN FREEDOMS WON: Afro-Brazilians in Post-Abolition São Paolo and Salvador, Kim Butler (1998) 8/10

PASSIONS OF THE MIND: Selected Writings, A.S. Byatt (1993) Two paperback copies; includes a review of BELOVED.

LOSING AMERICA: Confronting a Reckless and Arrogant Presidency, Robert C. Byrd (2004)

STORIES AND PROSE POEMS, Alexander Solzhenitsyn (1971; no dust jacket) 9/10

FIGURES OF DIVISION: William Faulkner's Major Novels, James Snead (1986)

THE IMMORTAL LIFE OF HENRIETTA LACKS, Rebecca Skloot (2010)

POETS IN THEIR YOUTH: A Memoir, Eileen Simpson (1982)

LISTEN TO ME GOOD: The Story of an Alabama Midwife, Margaret Charles Smith (1996) 10/10

To be continued...