Editing Nero Wolfe (section)

===Reading===
{{blockquote|Wolfe was drinking beer and looking at pictures of snowflakes in a book someone had sent him from Czechoslovakia. ... Looking at him, I said to myself, "He's in a battle with the elements. He's fighting his way through a raging blizzard, just sitting there comfortably looking at pictures of snowflakes. That's the advantage of being an artist, of having imagination." I said aloud, "You mustn't go to sleep, sir, it's fatal. You freeze to death."|Archie Goodwin in ''[[The League of Frightened Men]]'' (1935), chapter 1}}

Reading is central to Nero Wolfe's life, and books are central to the plots of many of the stories. The floor-to-ceiling bookshelves lining Wolfe's office contain some 1,200 books (''[[Gambit (novel)|Gambit]]'', chapter 6)—the size of Stout's own library.<ref name="McAleer"/>{{Rp|252}}

In the first paragraph of ''[[Plot It Yourself]]'', Archie relates his own method of grading what Wolfe is reading, on a scale from A to D. If Wolfe picks up a book before he rings for beer, and if he has marked his place with a thin strip of gold given to him by a grateful client, the book is an A. "I haven't kept score, but I would say that of the two hundred or so books he reads in a year not more than five or six get an A," Archie writes. In ''[[The Red Box]]'' (chapter 12), Wolfe uses a thin strip of ebony to mark his place as he re-reads ''[[Seven Pillars of Wisdom]]''. Archie indicates in various stories that Wolfe prefers to finish a paragraph before acknowledging an interruption in his reading. He often dog-ears a page to mark his place.

====Select reading list====
[[William S. Baring-Gould]]'s summary of Wolfe's library<ref>{{cite book |last=Baring-Gould |first=William S. |author-link=William S. Baring-Gould |date=1969 |title=Nero Wolfe of West Thirty-fifth Street |url=https://archive.org/details/nerowolfeofwestt00bari |url-access=registration |location=New York |publisher=Viking Press |pages=[https://archive.org/details/nerowolfeofwestt00bari/page/171 171–175] |isbn=0-14-006194-0}}</ref> was incorporated with contributions from others into an annotated reading list created by Winnifred Louis.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.nerowolfe.org/htm/tidbits/Wolfe_erudition.htm#a_la |title=The Erudite Nero Wolfe |publisher=[[The Wolfe Pack]] |access-date=2015-10-31}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.oocities.org/wrlouis/wolfe_rl.html#a_ar |title=Wolfe's Reading List |last1=Louis |first1=Winnifred |date=February 3, 2001 |website=Merely a Genius |access-date=2015-10-31}}</ref>
{| class="wikitable sortable"
|-
! Author
! Title
! Reference in Nero Wolfe corpus
! class="unsortable" | Chapter
|-
| {{sortname|Louis|Adamic}}
| ''{{sortname|The|Native's Return|nolink=1}}''
| ''{{sortname|The|League of Frightened Men}}''
| 2
|-
| {{sortname|Robert|Ardrey}}
| ''[[African Genesis]]'' 
| ''[[Gambit (novel)|Gambit]]''
| 3
|-
| {{sortname|Lincoln|Barnett}}
| ''{{sortname|The|Treasure of Our Tongue|nolink=1}}''
| ''{{sortname|The|Doorbell Rang}}''
| 4
|-
| {{sortname|Jacques|Barzun}}
| ''Science: The Glorious Entertainment'' 
| ''{{sortname|A|Right to Die}}''
| 11
|-
| {{sortname|Franz|Boas}}
| Autographed copies
| ''[[Too Many Cooks (novel)|Too Many Cooks]]''
| 10
|-
| {{sortname|Lyman|Bryson}}
| ''{{sortname|An|Outline of Man's Knowledge of the Modern World|nolink=1}}''
| ''[[Too Many Clients]]''
| 5
|-
| {{sortname|Albert|Camus}}
| ''{{sortname|The|Fall|The Fall (Camus novel)}}''
| "[[Fourth of July Picnic]]"
| 5
|-
| {{sortname|John Roy|Carlson|Arthur Derounian}}
| ''Under Cover'' 
| "[[Booby Trap (novella)|Booby Trap]]"
| 4
|-
| {{sortname|Rachel|Carson}}
| ''[[Silent Spring]]'' 
| ''{{sortname|The|Mother Hunt}}''
| 7
|-
| {{sortname|Bruce|Catton}}
| ''{{sortname|The|Coming Fury|nolink=1}}''
| "[[Murder Is Corny]]"
| 6
|-
| {{sortname|Bruce|Catton|nolink=1}}
| ''Grant Takes Command'' 
| ''[[Please Pass the Guilt]]''
| 2
|-
| {{sortname|Grenville|Clark}} and [[Louis B. Sohn]] 
| ''[[World Peace Through World Law]]'' 
| ''[[Champagne for One]]''
| 7
|-
| {{sortname|Fred J.|Cook}}
| ''{{sortname|The|FBI Nobody Knows|nolink=1}}''
| ''{{sortname|The|Doorbell Rang|nolink=1}}''
| 1
|-
| {{sortname|Elmer|Davis}}
| ''But We Were Born Free'' 
| ''{{sortname|The|Black Mountain|The Black Mountain (novel)}}''
| 3
|-
| {{sortname|Clifton|Fadiman}}
| ''Party of One'' 
| ''[[Before Midnight (novel)|Before Midnight]]''
| 12
|-
| {{sortname|John|Gunther}}
| ''Inside Europe'' 
| ''[[Too Many Cooks (novel)|Too Many Cooks]]''
| 1
|-
| {{sortname|John|Gunther|nolink=1}}
| ''Inside Russia Today'' 
| "[[Method Three for Murder]]"
| 1
|-
| {{sortname|Lancelot|Hogben}}
| ''Mathematics for the Million''
| "[[The Zero Clue]]"
| 7
|-
| {{sortname|Rudyard|Kipling}}
| ''{{sortname|The|Jungle Book}}''
| ''[[Death of a Doxy]]''
| 9
|-
| {{sortname|Arthur|Koestler}}
| ''{{sortname|The|Lotus and the Robot}}''
| ''{{sortname|The|Final Deduction}}''
| 2
|-
| {{sortname|William|Kunstler}}
| ''{{sortname|The|Minister and the Choir Singer|nolink=1}}''
| ''{{sortname|A|Right to Die|nolink=1}}''
| 8
|-
| {{sortname|Christopher|La Farge|Christopher La Farge (author)}}
| ''Beauty for Ashes'' 
| ''Before Midnight''
| 9
|-
| {{sortname|Christopher|La Farge|nolink=1}}
| ''The Sudden Guest'' 
| ''[[Too Many Women (novel)|Too Many Women]]''
| 16
|-
| {{sortname|T. E.|Lawrence}}
| ''[[Seven Pillars of Wisdom]]'' 
| ''{{sortname|The|Red Box}}''
| 12
|-
| {{sortname|Walter|Lord}}
| ''Incredible Victory'' 
| ''{{sortname|The|Father Hunt}}''
| 2
|-
| {{sortname|C. I.|Lewis|Clarence Irving Lewis}}
| ''{{sortname|A|Survey of Symbolic Logic|nolink=1}}''
| ''Too Many Women''
| 16
|-
| {{sortname|Merle|Miller}}
| ''{{sortname|A|Secret Understanding|nolink=1}}''
| ''[[Might as Well Be Dead]]''
| 8
|-
| {{sortname|Michel de|Montaigne}}
| ''[[Essays (Montaigne)|Essays]]'' 
| ''Before Midnight''
| 19
|-
| {{sortname|Louis|Nizer}}
| ''[[My Life in Court]]'' 
| "Murder Is Corny"
| 5
|-
| {{sortname|Dan|Rather}} and Gary Gates
| ''{{sortname|The|Palace Guard|nolink=1}}''
| ''{{sortname|A|Family Affair|A Family Affair (novel)}}''
| 2
|-
| {{sortname|A. L.|Rowse}}
| ''William Shakespeare: A Biography'' 
| ''{{sortname|A|Right to Die|nolink=1}}''
| 3
|-
| {{sortname|Walter|Schneir}} and Miriam Schneir
| ''Invitation to an Inquest'' 
| ''Death of a Doxy''
| 2
|-
| {{sortname|William L.|Shirer}}
| ''{{sortname|The|Rise and Fall of the Third Reich}}''
| "[[Kill Now—Pay Later]]"
| 3
|-
| {{sortname|Alexander|Solzhenitsyn|Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn}}
| ''{{sortname|The|First Circle|In the First Circle}}''
| ''[[Death of a Dude]]''
| 7
|-
| {{sortname|John|Steinbeck}}
| ''[[Travels with Charley]]'' 
| ''{{sortname|The|Mother Hunt|nolink=1}}''
| 3
|-
| {{sortname|Ivan|Turgenev}}
| Stories
| ''Please Pass the Guilt''
| 14
|-
| {{sortname|Mark|Van Doren}}
| Poetry
| ''[[And Be a Villain]]''
| 1
|}