Shelfies #17: David Agranoff

My shelves and my system are designed for function.

I study the history of SF and Philip K. Dick. I am the co-host of the Dickheads podcast devoted to his work and a regular columnist on the Amazing Stories website (my column is called “25^th Century Five and Dime”) where I write reviews and histories of classic science fiction from the Golden Age and New Wave. I also just completed writing a book for EXEGETICS: PKD STUDIES from Anti-Oedipus Press called Unfinished PKD: The Fragments and Outlines of Philip K. Dick. I am also co-editing a Philip K. Dick encyclopedia which we are selling to raise funds for future PKD festivals in Orange County and Berkeley. 

My office is designed so that when I am sitting at the desk I can reach and grab any resource material or actual Philip K. Dick novel without getting up.

You can see that I have the books in three stacks. Between the stacks, I have the seven books I most often use or reference. (Pot-Healer, Time Slip, Scanner Darkly, Eye in the Sky, High Castle, Do Androids, and my favorite, Three Stigmata).

Down the line from the shelf are my anthology appearances, novels, and short story collections. You can also see all my John Brunner, Norman Spinrad, Leigh Brackett, and Barry Malzberg books. On the right are various 20th-century SF.

The shelf in front of my face is all the non-fiction reference books about Science Fiction, and of course, on the right are the ‘about PKD’ books. Pink Beam: A Philip K. Dick Literary Companion by Lord Running Clam and Divine Invasions by Sutin are in my endnotes 150 times. In the photo, you can also see my podcast microphone, and an original painting by cyberpunk legend John Shirley that he gave me.

On top is an actual Philip K. Dick letter that was a gift from collector Zack Wood. It is from June 1974, in which Phil told PhD student Claudia Bush that he was writing a sequel to Man in the High Castle called VALISYSTEMA.

David Agranoff is a novelist, screenwriter, and Horror and Science Fiction critic. He is the Splatterpunk and Wonderland book award-nominated author of 12 books including the WWII vampire novel The Last Night to Kill Nazis (Clash Books) and Punk Rock Ghost Story (Deadite Press). For the last five years, David has co-hosted the Dickheads podcast, a deep-dive into the work of Philip K. Dick reviewing his novels in publication order as well as the history of Science Fiction. He also hosts a personal podcast, Postcards from a Dying World. His non-fiction essays have appeared on Tor.com, NeoText, and Cemetery Dance. He writes a regular column for Amazing Stories called 25^th Century Five and Dime. His most recent novel is the science fiction coming-of-age novel People’s Park. His next book is Unfinished PKD on the unpublished fragments and outlines of Philip K. Dick, out early in 2025.

Shelfies is edited by Lavie Tidhar and Jared Shurin. If you are interested in sharing a shelfie, please let us know.