tl;dr: A blogger describes seven books kept within arm's reach for inspiration: Roget's Thesaurus (4th ed., defended as a conceptual hierarchy rather than a synonym list), Sir Thomas Browne's prose, Boccaccio's Decameron, van Heijenoort's From Frege to Gödel logic anthology, Comenius's illustrated 1658 children's book Orbis Pictus, the NIV Bible, and a book of the Belles Heures of the Duc de Berry. Each entry includes personal anecdotes, digressions into favorite passages, and links to past blog posts on the same subjects.