book haul and a plea for better artificial memory

I went out cruising the bookstores with my wife and mother today, which resulted in a somewhat gargantuan and no doubt rashly timed book haul:

1. Collected Poems: Tony Harrison
2. Selected Poems 1908-1969: Ezra Pound
3. All Shot Up: Chester Himes
4. Stars In My Pocket Like Grains Of Sand: Samuel R. Delany
5. Maigret Mystified: Georges Simenon
6. 10,000 Light-Years From Home: James Tiptree Jr
7. Shards Of Space: Robert Sheckley
8. The Saint In New York: Leslie Charteris
9. The Princess And The Goblin: George MacDonald
10. Fundamental Disch: Thomas M. Disch
11. Johnny And The Dead: Terry Pratchett
12. Melmoth The Wanderer: Charles Robert Maturin
13. Marriages and Infidelities: Joyce Carol Oates
14. Damned To Fame - The Life Of Samuel Beckett: James Knowlson
15. Asimov's Guide To The Bible
16. Raymond Chandler - A Biography: Tom Hiney
17. The Real Life Of Anthony Burgess: Andrew Biswell

I wonder when I'll get around to reading all of them. My backlog of unread books has reached ridiculous proportions, even though I work diligently at finishing them all. Sometimes I wish they'd work out the brain-computer interface a little faster (if they're working on it at all) so that I can have all these books already in my memory instantly, in such a way that all the correlations and connections you make with the contents of a specific book and everything else in your memory (which is the knowledge and context each individual carries around in their own head) are automatically made. As for the first-hand, sensual pleasure of reading the actual book, that can be done at moments of leisure by remembering their contents in perfect detail. Even though I love collecting physical books I'm no Luddite; if such a technology existed, I would be all for it.

(The image at the head of this post is courtesy jef safi. It's the Sator Square, a mnemonic device that dates back to Roman times and may have been used to remember a religious or magical formula. Another fascinating historical method of extending the human memory was the memory palace.)