OUR LIBRARIES, OURSELVES

MUCH ADO WAS made last week about what we read, and what it has to say about our mental health. More specifically, the question concerned what crazy murderous cannibals read, and what that has to say about their mental health—but it's not hard to take that extra step.

It was the fourth day that wacky Daniel Rakowitz was on the stand in a losing battle to prove he's sane. Things hadn't been going really well for Rakowitz up to that point. He'd been rambling, he'd been changing his story all around, he'd been talking about all his little animal friends. Drunk- driving, cop-kicking paranoid judge Donna Mills even had to chastise him for being too long-winded and incoherent. Not the best way to convince a jury that there's no way in hell you'd ever turn anyone into a soup ever again.

Then the prosecutor cited a list of the books in Rakowitz's library as yet more proof that he was a dangerous maniac, crazy as a loon, a man "fascinated with evil" who would surely be dismembering someone else within half an hour of being released.

Among the titles found in Rakowitz's cell on Ward Island:

Murder in Little Rock

Thrill Killers

Deranged (about cannibalistic child-killer Albert Fish)

The Ultimate Evil (an attempt to connect Manson, David Berkowitz and several other famous killers to the Process Church)

Cellar of Horror (about Gary Heidnik)

Poison Blood

(It wasn't reported whether or not Rakowitz was in possession of True Vampires or Killers Next Door—two books in which his own case is discussed.)

It was also noted that he was prevented from ordering a copy of Gray's Anatomy in 1992, and had been carrying a copy of Mein Kampf with him at the time of his initial police interrogation.

The prosecutor told jurors the library was "one more reason he should stay locked up."

Think about that reasoning for a second. Take a quick inventory of the books, CDs, movies and other bric-a-brac in your apartment. If you ever found yourself on trial, what would all those things tell a jury about your mental health? We'd be in trouble, that's for damn sure.

In fact, just about every one of the above books is in our home library, too. Which has us thinking it might be time for an emergency stoop sale.