The Random House Magazine Hazlitt has a weekly column written by Emily Keeler called Shelf Esteem. In this column, authors and other notable figures talk about their home libraries. This week, embattled Toronto Mayor Rob Ford, now punching back at allegations that he did heroin as well as crack, and then tried to buy the video evidence of this with $5,000 and a car, agreed to participate, and this is what he shared:<\/p>\n

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I\u2019m a pretty busy guy so I don\u2019t have an awful lot of time for reading, but I tell you, I wish I did. I love that feeling when you\u2019re reading a good book, like one by Stephen King, and you just can\u2019t stop turning the pages! It\u2019s like a friggin\u2019 addiction or something and you just have to know who\u2019s gonna be the next to get killed, you know? So exciting. Reading, it\u2019s a real passion, if I had the time.<\/p>\n

So on my bookcases you can see all sorts of stuff. This is a football. I got it a Bill\u2019s game. It\u2019s signed by Jim Kelly, the best goddamn passer of his era. I tell you, he wasn\u2019t afraid of taking a hit in order to make the pass. Class act, Jim Kelly, class act.<\/p>\n

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\nOver here we have my bobble-head doll. I look a little slimmer in it than real life, I guess, ha-ha! And this is a Toronto Argonaut football helmet radio. Had it since I was a kid.<\/p>\n

This is the Bible, written by God, obviously. I take a lot of inspiration from it. Means a lot to me. Really, really would have liked to have to sat down and had a pint or two with Jesus. He was a real man of the people. This one is Chicken Soup for the Soul. It\u2019s also inspirational, like a bible for people that haven\u2019t yet had their Jesus moment. This is a book \u00a0about the cars from the Fast and the Furious movies. It’s pretty cool. By the way, I just want to say that it was really sad that the guy from those movies died, but at least it was a warrior\u2019s death, so respect to him and his family.<\/p>\n

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Let\u2019s see, I got some more stuff over here: some fantasy football magazines, Infinite Jest\u2014never got through it\u2014a Florida travel guide and Beloved by Toni Morrison. I wept like a baby when I read that book. Loved the line about being \u201cfull of a baby\u2019s venom.\u201d I tell you, if I were the type to get a tattoo, that\u2019s the tattoo I would get. Toni Morrison rocks. Moving on, I got a puck here signed by the Toronto Maple Leafs, and oh, this is the Velveteen Rabbit. I’ve had it since I was a kid, it\u2019s about a doll you can\u2019t kill.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Random House Magazine Hazlitt has a weekly column written by Emily Keeler called Shelf Esteem.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":3985,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[2031,2033,1029,2042,113,138,2044,2038,177,2035,63,2029,2046,2036,325,615,2028,2034,2043,2041,434,151,1341,2037,614,55,196,2045,2030,50,2040,283,477,2032,324,2039],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/michaelmurray.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3982"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/michaelmurray.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/michaelmurray.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/michaelmurray.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/michaelmurray.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3982"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/michaelmurray.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3982\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3988,"href":"http:\/\/michaelmurray.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3982\/revisions\/3988"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/michaelmurray.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3985"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/michaelmurray.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3982"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/michaelmurray.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3982"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/michaelmurray.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3982"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}