--- title: The Universe of Discourse : Seven books I keep close... description: A personal essay by Mark Dominus describing the seven books he keeps on the shelf closest to his writing desk. The books span a wide range: Roget's Thesaurus... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/the-universe-of-discourse-seven-books-i-keep-close-because-i-love-them-kosncp0b2 twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: The Universe of Discourse : Seven books I keep close because I love them | daily.dev og:description: A personal essay by Mark Dominus describing the seven books he keeps on the shelf closest to his writing desk. The books span a wide range: Roget's Thesaurus... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/the-universe-of-discourse-seven-books-i-keep-close-because-i-love-them-kosncp0b2 og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/KosNcp0B2.png og:image:alt: The Universe of Discourse : Seven books I keep close because I love them og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # The Universe of Discourse : Seven books I keep close because I love them **[Planet Haskell](https://daily.dev/sources/phaskell)** · 20 min read · 0 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary A personal essay by Mark Dominus describing the seven books he keeps on the shelf closest to his writing desk. The books span a wide range: Roget's Thesaurus (with a detailed explanation of its proper use as a conceptual organizer rather than a synonym finder), the prose of Sir Thomas Browne, Boccaccio's Decameron, the mathematical logic anthology 'From Frege to Gödel', Comenius's illustrated children's book 'Orbis Pictus', the NIV Bible, and the 'Belles Heures' of Duc de Berry. Each entry includes personal anecdotes, unpublished blog article ideas, and reflections on why the book matters to the author. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [5 Books I Enjoyed Reading in 2025](https://daily.dev/posts/5-books-i-enjoyed-reading-in-2025-o1c22pwp9) · Tomas Votruba · 1 upvotes · 0 comments - [Year in books](https://daily.dev/posts/year-in-books-s9ypmoopv) · Phil Eaton · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [Ten Books That Shaped How I Think](https://daily.dev/posts/ten-books-that-shaped-how-i-think-lijdyvcex) · BirkeyCo · 1 upvotes · 0 comments - [My favorite Computer Science books, and why](https://daily.dev/posts/my-favorite-computer-science-books-and-why-whctjjjgh) · Lobsters · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [Favorite Books of 2025](https://daily.dev/posts/favorite-books-of-2025-k0cpabqg9) · Simple Thread · 1 upvotes · 0 comments --- [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/the-universe-of-discourse-seven-books-i-keep-close-because-i-love-them-kosncp0b2) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"The Universe of Discourse : Seven books I keep close because I love them","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/the-universe-of-discourse-seven-books-i-keep-close-because-i-love-them-kosncp0b2","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/the-universe-of-discourse-seven-books-i-keep-close-because-i-love-them-kosncp0b2"},"datePublished":"2026-08-03T03:45:36.681Z","dateModified":"2026-08-03T03:45:57.380Z","description":"A personal essay by Mark Dominus describing the seven books he keeps on the shelf closest to his writing desk. 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