Inside the List - NYTimes.com THE READER: One of the things Robert K. Massie reveals in his magisterial biography of Catherine the Great, at No. 8 in its sixth week on the hardcover nonfiction list, is that the empress had a voracious appetite for books - especially as an escape from her prosaic husband, Czar Peter III, whose conversation was "of a dullness," Massie quotes her saying, "that I have never seen equaled. When he left me, the most boring book seemed delightful. Catherine read plenty in Russian, Massie reports, "but French was the language she preferred, and she read French books indiscriminately, picking up whatever her ladies-in-waiting happened to be reading. She always kept a book in her room and carried another in her pocket. The empress eventually bought Diderot's library for more than £50,000, thus sealing her reputation as a patron of the arts and making the rest of Europe finally take notice of Russia as a cultural center. Catherine's love of books puts me in mind of Alan Bennett's appealingly quirky ­novella from a few years ago, "The Uncommon Reader," which imagines Queen Elizabeth II stumbling into a bookmobile one day and inadvertently getting drawn into the literary life, to the detriment of England's social and political affairs. "What she was finding," Bennett writes, "was how one book led to another, doors kept opening wherever she turned and the days weren't long enough for the reading she wanted to do." REDUCE, REUSE, REGIFT: The crime writer Alexander McCall Smith, whose new novel, "The Forgotten Affairs of Youth," spent some time on the extended hardcover list last month, says it's O.K. to dispose of unwanted Christmas gifts so long as you observe certain rules of etiquette. "You don't have to keep the present forever, but you should not give it away immediately," Smith told his Twitter followers on Christmas Eve. January 25th is about right. Thereafter the unwanted present may be disposed of, preferably given away. If sold, proceeds to charity. He also cautioned readers to watch their reactions when they open dud gifts in the first place. "Never give the present back to the donor," he wrote. "Never say, "I've got one already." Never ask: "What does it do?" " THE KANSAS MATTER: On the cover of the Jan. 8 issue, Michael Kinsley will review Thomas Frank's new polemic, "Pity the Billionaire." The book hasn't had time to hit the list yet - its official publication date is Jan. 3 - but if history is any guide, it should show up here soon. Frank's breakthrough book, "What's the Matter With Kansas?," spent 18 weeks on the hardcover nonfiction list in 2004-5, and his follow-up about the second Bush administration, "The Wrecking Crew," logged four weeks in 2008. Writing in The New Yorker that year, Nicholas Lemann described Frank as "a little like an anti-­pornography crusader in his intense fascination with the thing that horrifies him - his Washington is full of mansions, fine wines, expensive suits, cigars and wood paneling," and he predicted that Frank would soon turn against Barack Obama for selling out to corporate interests. Cue the new book. Frank has lately shown signs of forgiving the president, though. After Obama spoke last month in Osawatomie, Kan., about economic inequality and the need for a strong government response, Frank applauded him on MSNBC. "He was trying to make the populist turn the same way Teddy Roosevelt did in 1910," Frank said. And, you know, it's about time. I am really, really, really happy to see him going down this road finally. But that's why people go to Osawatomie, you know?