Thanks to a BlogSnob referral, I've found an interesting online photo project—Bookslut will probably love it.

Shoot Your Shelf is a project in which you take a picture of a shelf in your house—bookshelf, medicine cabinet shelf, or whatever. No cleaning or organizing allowed, so you're on your honor to resist the temptation to surreptitiously insert Italo Calvino in your shelf full of Tom Clancy, or Flaubert next to your Helen Fielding.

Cheating, however, offers a marvelous opportunity for reputation adjustment.

Is your blog preoccupied with matters of pop culture and which celebrities are dating each other? Submit a photo prominently featuring the Qabbalah and the I Ching on your shelf, to show you're grounded in deeper mysteries.

Is your blog a navel-gazing confessional? Post a photograph of books about third-world volunteer opportunities, to show your concern for others. Or a shelf full of Sylvia Plath and Anne Sexton, so people will know your preoccupation with yourself is not only self-indulgent, but artistic.

Is your blog a shameless self-promotion for your "serious" writing—novels, tech manuals, or whatever? Post a photo of a shelf full of them—you're shameless, remember? Better yet, post a photo of your book next to a respected authority in the field. If you just wrote a usability manual, photograph it next to Jakob Nielsen's latest and enjoy the fruits of respect-by-association!

So, remember—you're on your honor. No cleaning or organizing.

It's not your problem if you don't have any honor to be on, right?