{"id":14320,"date":"2011-04-08T12:02:44","date_gmt":"2011-04-08T16:02:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=14320"},"modified":"2011-04-08T16:04:28","modified_gmt":"2011-04-08T20:04:28","slug":"readers-guilt-toadstools","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2011\/04\/08\/readers-guilt-toadstools\/","title":{"rendered":"Reader\u2019s Guilt; Toadstools"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"I always tell people that my favorite book is <\/em>Infinite Jest<\/a>, and even though I haven\u2019t gotten halfway through it, it\u2019s still the best half of a book that I have ever read! Do you have any guilt from unread books floating around?<\/em><\/p>\n

Hmm. You mean books I\u2019ve started that, if the title of one should happen to come up in conversation, I\u2019d nod, implying\u2014without ever explicitly stating\u2014that I\u2019d read the whole thing? I can think of one or two. The Man Without Qualities<\/em><\/a>, The Magic Mountain<\/em><\/a>,\u00a0Ulysses<\/em><\/a>,\u00a0Blood Meridian<\/em><\/a>, Molloy<\/a><\/em>, Jane Eyre<\/em><\/a>, Being and Nothingness<\/em><\/a>, Being and Time<\/em><\/a>, American Pastoral<\/em><\/a>, The Recognitions<\/em><\/a>, Gravity\u2019s Rainbow<\/em><\/a>,\u00a0V.<\/em><\/a>,\u00a0Vanity Fair<\/em><\/a>,\u00a0The Education of Henry Adams<\/em><\/a>, The Beautiful and Damned<\/em><\/a>, The Satanic Verses<\/em><\/a>, Underworld<\/em><\/a>, The World as Will and Representation<\/em><\/a>, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus<\/em><\/a>, Hopscotch<\/em><\/a>, Tristram Shandy<\/em><\/a>, The Long Goodbye<\/em><\/a>, The Hobbit<\/em><\/a>, Shikasta<\/em><\/a>,\u00a0Contempt<\/em><\/a>,\u00a0Scaramouche<\/em><\/a>, Watership Down<\/em><\/a>, The Three Musketeers<\/em><\/a>, and\u00a0William Faulkner (pretty much opera omnia) spring to mind.<\/p>\n

Dear Mr. Stein,<\/em><\/p>\n

I have lately searched in vain for the right collective noun for toadstools and, in the absence of any viable candidates, have opted for <\/em>sect, e.g., \u201ca sect of toadstools.\u201d May I in good conscience proceed? I trust your judgment. Thank you.<\/em><\/p>\n

Yours sincerely,<\/em><\/p>\n

Angus Trumble<\/p>\n

We are not prescriptivists, here at The Paris Review<\/em>. Over the years our house usage has wobbled between OK<\/em> and okay<\/em>, et cetera<\/em> and its abbreviation\u2014even (in the old, hot-type days) between one typeface and another … in the space of a single issue. If you want to call a bunch of fungus by your own private collective noun, who are we to say no? Go crazy with that! I only worry that the plural may cause confusion.<\/p>\n

Have a question for <\/em>The Paris Review? E-mail<\/a> us.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I always tell people that my favorite book is Infinite Jest, and even though I haven\u2019t gotten halfway through it, it\u2019s still the best half of a book that I have ever read! Do you have any guilt from unread books floating around? Hmm. You mean books I\u2019ve started that, if the title of one […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[57,555,2115,456,53,2116,2114],"class_list":["post-14320","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ask-the-paris-review","tag-advice","tag-angus-trumble","tag-collective-noun","tag-lorin-stein","tag-reading","tag-toadstools","tag-unfinished-books"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nReader\u2019s Guilt; Toadstools by Lorin Stein<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"April 8, 2011 \u2013 I always tell people that my favorite book is Infinite Jest, and even though I haven\u2019t gotten halfway through it, it\u2019s still the best half of a book that\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2011\/04\/08\/readers-guilt-toadstools\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Reader\u2019s Guilt; 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