Seven books I keep close because I love them

Mark Dominus describes seven books he keeps on his nearby bookshelf—chosen not for frequent reference but for their inspirational influence on his writing. He begins with Roget's Thesaurus (4th edition), explaining that the reference work is commonly misunderstood as a simple synonym finder, when its true purpose, following Roget's original vision, is to organize knowledge into a hierarchical classification system covering abstract concepts, space, physics, matter, sensation, and other domains.