It will be my 8th Ikea Billy bookshelf. I also have a couple of other, less branded, made out of real wood bookshelves. An Ikea Billy bookshelf holds 120 books or more – 8 seems extravagant. But will it be enough?

The LA Times list of favorite books of 2009 is now online, a total of 50 books in two parts, fiction/poetry and nonfiction. It’s a master list that is compiled by the editors; some of my suggestions made it. But not all.

I’m not including all the books that I loved in 2009, but right at this moment, here are 10 of my favorites, in alpha order by author, including a few I haven’t even read.

Invisible by Paul Auster (haven’t read it, but I really really want to read it)

Ablutions by Patrick deWitt (from bad to worse, told with raw precision, in a sleazy Hollywood bar)

I Am Not Sidney Poitier by Percival Everett (haven’t read this either, but sometimes favorites are those books that are all potential)

Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer (if you can eat chicken after reading this book, you’re not well)

Chronic City by Jonathan Lethem (like Ms. Kakutani said, except the opposite)

Generosity by Richard Powers (I loved The Echo Maker so much that I don’t believe his follow up could possibly let me down)

Inherent Vice by Thomas Pynchon (Sixties, smart, silly, streamlined Pynchon that’s about the end of mystery while masquerading as a detective fiction).

A Bright and Guilty Place by Richard Rayner (the true story of two Angelenos whose intersecting lives capture two aspects of the city in a critical defining era)

When Skateboards Will Be Free by Said Sayrafiezadeh (memoir of growing up red & poor in the 70s & 80s)

Far North by Marcel Theroux (when civilization crumbles, head to Siberia and follow Makepeace’s lead)

Heading to the PEN USA West awards tonight at the Beverly Hills Hotel. In my many years in LA, I’ve never before been to the pink icon of Beverly Hillsiness. Nor have I been to the PEN Awards, actually. Last year Veronique was tweeting the winners to me, but this year she’s in Guadalajara with many other LA writers at the massive book fair. I guess it’s up to me to tweet — so I will, right here.

That’s my mom at age 13 in 1955. The name of the cat is long forgotten.

I know it comes between covers and is sold in bookstores. But it’s not a book, it’s a celebrity media push. Maybe it’s a campaign advertisement. Maybe it’s a talk show audition. Maybe it’s a prelude to a line of “you betcha!” ladies huntingwear — who knows. But whatever it is, “Going Rogue” is not a book in the way we book people think of books.

Have I read it? No. I’d rather read Edmund Morris’ “Dutch: A Memoir of Ronald Reagan,” even though it’s a) about Ronald Reagan and b) has a questionable historical fiction conceit. Because at least that was a book.

Now I just need to find a couple of ebooks and take the thing out for a spin.

I took a picture of artwork based on the writing of David Foster Wallace (it’s the 3rd slide).

I didn’t know Wallace; I just happened to be near the artwork when it needed a photo taken. And I had a digital camera in my backpack.

So: if you really want to get into the New Yorker, I say, carry a camera.

Writing well probably helps. But carrying a digital camera can’t hurt.

Cecil Castellucci’s book Beige is coming out in paperback, and to celebrate she’s asked a bunch of people to giver her punk music lists. Mine is personal, rather than definitive — but it includes videos! Because Douglas Wolk included videos in his list, and it seemed like a good idea.

BTW, I cannot quote Dashiell Hammett. Cecil has confused him with Raymond Chandler, over whose writing I swoon.

Not that hard, right?