"What a lot of books!  Have you read them all?"

Umberto Eco's Answer:  "...while your jaw stiffens and rivulets of cold sweat trickle down your spine.  In the past I adopted a tone of contemptuous sarcasm 'I haven't read any of them; otherwise, why would I keep them here?'  But this is a dangerous answer because it invites the obvious follow-up: 'And where do you put them after you've read them?'  The best answer is the one always used by Roberto Leydi: 'And more, dear sir, many more,' which freezes the adversary and plunges him into a state of awed admiration.  But I find it merciless and angst-generating.  Now I have fallen back on the riposte: 'No, these are the ones I have to read by the end of the month.  I keep the others in my office,' a reply that on the one hand suggests a sublime ergonomic strategy and on the other leads the visitor to hasten the moment of his departure.'

"The contents of someone's bookcase are part of his history, like an ancestral portrait." ~ Anatole Broyard.

~ Umberto Eco, How to Justify a Private Library, Author of The Name of the Rose.