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Matches Made in Heaven

I was in a coffee shop recently. There were books along the walls. This is an interesting phenomenon, in and of itself (seems as those inclined to read at a coffee shop would bring a book of their choosing). Two book pairings stood out to me. Part of me is certain that these books were not placed next to one another accidentally. Check them out:

Gay American History next to a book by Rush Limbaugh. Can that really be accidental? Someone with too much time in a coffee shop has a sense of humor.

The Science of Mind next to Completely Queer. Maybe not as blatant as the previous one, but still an artful pairing.

These pairings made me think how funny it would be to try and organize an entire shelf of books (or more) into ironic, humorous, or subliminal pairings. Of course, I would never scrap my alphabetical ordering for this, because I would be bugged to no end, but it has at least planted the seed of perhaps finding more fun book pairings when I am out in the world.

  • Ryan W. Bradley has pumped gas, changed oil, painted houses, swept the floor of a mechanic's shop, worked on a construction crew in the Arctic Circle, fronted a punk band, and managed an independent children's bookstore. He now works in marketing. His latest book is Nothing but the Dead and Dying, a collection of stories set in Alaska. He lives in southern Oregon with his wife and two sons.

4 thoughts on “Matches Made in Heaven

  1. Sometimes when I’m at bookstores I imagine that a book from one section is really a book from another section—i.e., that a politics title is really a sexual health title, etc.

    Beginning the Quest
    The Cambridge Companion to Leo Strauss
    Governance Theory and Practice
    The Laughing Lion and the Strutting Fox
    Patriotic Elaborations
    Leviathan
    The Political Philosophy of Michel Foucault

    …It’s meager, I know, but this is how I amuse myself.

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