Every week, we're learning something new and incongruous about President Bush. Two weeks ago, White House Press Secretary Tony Snow swore on a stack of Tom Clancy novels that Mr. Bush really has taken to wearing black turtlenecks and reading Camus' "The Stranger" at his Crawford ranch.

If the sound of one hand clapping is easier to imagine than Mr. Bush consuming existentialist literature, you're not alone.

A week after positioning Mr. Bush as someone who gives plenty of thought to the meaninglessness of human existence, the White House was in the absurd position of vehemently denying a U.S. News and World Report item that the president is, um, partial to flatulence jokes:

"[President Bush is] still a funny, earthy guy who, for example, can't get enough of fart jokes. He's also known to cut a few for laughs, especially when greeting new young aides."

Unfortunately, most of us have an easier time imagining our commander in chief as a serial "cheese cutter" than someone capable of staring into the great, yawning void of existence without nodding off.

After a few days of issuing denials, the White House returned to its strategy of portraying the president as a bookish, somewhat world-weary thinker who spends most of his waking hours wrestling with other people's big thoughts.

Oh, let the skeptics groan and hoot with derision. If 76-year-old televangelist Pat Robertson can leg press 2,700 pounds after downing one of his patented Holy Ghost Age Defying smoothies, then why can't an incurious president read six to eight hefty books a month while waging a war?

As long as Mr. Bush pushes his bedtime back an hour to 10 p.m., he could easily read every notable book published in the last 50 years before his second term has ended.

The list of 60 books Mr. Bush is alleged to have read this year reveals an intellect of Promethean scale and ambition. He's read 10 books more than his chief adviser, Karl Rove, who presumably continues to run the country with Mr. Cheney while Mr. Bush wanders the aisles of Barnes & Noble.

A partial list of the books Mr. Bush is alleged to have devoured between mountain biking and weight lifting two hours a day includes Edvard Radzinsky's "Alexander II: The Last Great Tsar," John Barry's "The Great Influenza: The Epic Story of the Deadliest Plague in History," Geraldine Brooks' "Nine Parts of Desire: The Hidden World of Islamic Women" and "Mao: The Unknown Story" by Jung Chang and Jon Halliday.

Mr. Bush also put away three books about Lincoln this year -- "Manhunt: The 12-Day Chase for Lincoln's Killer" by James Swanson, "Lincoln: A Life of Purpose and Power" by Richard Carwardine and "Lincoln's Greatest Speech: The Second Inaugural" by Ronald White Jr.

Mr. Bush's summer reading list is formidable, clocking in at 25 books. The list includes the three Lincoln books previously mentioned, "After Fidel: The Inside Story of Castro's Regime and Cuba's Next Leader" by Brian Latell, "Revolutionary Characters: What Made the Founders Different" by Gordon Wood, "Mayflower: A Story of Courage, Community and War" by Nathaniel Philbrick, "Polio: An American Story" by David Oshinsky and "Clemente: The Passion and Grace of Baseball's Last Hero" by David Maraniss.

And while contemporary writers exert a powerful pull on Mr. Bush's imagination, he also managed to reread Shakespeare's two greatest tragedies, "Hamlet" and "Macbeth" just to keep his literary allusions sharp and pungent.

Frankly, if this list is true (and I have no reason to doubt the veracity of the White House press office), Mr. Bush has fallen off the wagon of American anti-intellectualism that has served him so well and is now flagrantly engaged in the greatest presidential reading spree in the republic's history.

Mr. Bush is suddenly drunk with literacy and intoxicated by the love of reading.

Still, I fear there is more than a touch of vanity at work in the president's attempt to read every book on The New York Times best-seller list. As it says in Ecclesiastes: "But beyond this, my son, be warned: The writing of many books is endless, and excessive devotion to books is wearying to the body."

Let's pray that there is middle ground between idle flatulence and the paralysis brought on by too much book learning.