Article on Bookshelves and What They Reveal About Us: The Subconcious Shelf

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/13/books/review/the-subconscious-shelf.html?_r=1&...

An interesting read and a promising book about the bookshelves of authors

Made me think about what we display in our living room versus the library versus the office (which is closed to visitors).

KK

And for those who want to see the public side of our book collection: our library:

http://www.librarything.com/pic/264754

Interesting article. I've snooped through people's books too. It's the first thing I 'm drawn when visiting someone's house. I keep the erotica in a trunk at the bottom of the closet. The self-help books are in the pantry in a box. My travel collection, steampunk collection, antique books, and mysteries are front and center in the living room. My art and craft books are in a hallway. I'm definitely mindful of what spines are exposed.

I always notice the presence or lack of books in someone's home. Most of our books are in our downstairs library. There is a book stack in our bedroom, and a bookcase full of our signed/inscribed books is in our den. These are the books most visitors see - I'm probably consciously showing-off there.

The magazine section of this weekend's Financial Times has an article about the libraries of Gary Shteyngart, Philip Pullman, Claire Messud & James Wood, Junot Diaz and Edmund White with nice pictures and lists of the writers' ten favourite books. It is comforting to see that Pullman keeps a large part of his collection piled up on the floor.

ETA - I read the New York Times article after posting this - the FT feature is, in fact, an edited extract from Leah Price's book. One for the wish-list, I think.

Forget sub-consciously, I very consciously express myself through my bookshelves. I shelve books based on how I feel about them and I think that my library's content and arrangement speak volumes (pun not intended, but I'm leaving it anyway) about me. I always study the books in other people's houses trying to get a feel for them and how they think. I'm never subtle about it either. "Show me your books" is akin to "hello" in my world.

Maybe it's just that I'm from a different generation, but I find that to be a bit rude.

I would always say "Hello. Show me your books."

Like the writer, I also used to babysit while in my teens and, whereas my friends used their babysitting as an excuse for a crafty cigarette away from their parents or an opportunity to use their victim's phone or empty their fridge, I just couldn't wait to get at the bookshelves. I was a very popular babysitter for that very reason because parents would come home to find their house and belongings completely untouched except for their bookshelves. Once or twice, though, I was disappointed to return to the same house just to find that the book I started reading (I clearly remember Bonnie and Clyde as one example) had been deemed unsuitable and hidden away from me.

I always feel very sad when I enter a house and find shelves full of pristine, beautifully bound, unread books. My own shelves are full of dog-eared paperbacks that are there for no reason other than that I love them and can't bear to part with them. I've become pretty ruthless about discarding books I will never wish to reread but that still leaves around 2,000 'favourites' that I know I'd only have to buy again if they somehow went missing (this despite the fact that I will have to live to be 426 if I'm to reread all the oldies as well as keeping up with my current rate of buying new books). But as for displaying books to impress someone else - what is the point? Different people are impressed by different books. I'm sure that for every person who is 'impressed' by my shelves there is another who thinks they display my ignorance and lack of taste. Sorry guys, my Shakespeare and Graves will continue to rub shoulders with Valley of the Dolls and Know Your Rodent and long may it continue that way.

I keep all of my books in my living room (well, except for a handful of cookbooks in the kitchen). When I've been in houses or apartments with other layouts, I've been more conscious about what I put where, but mostly for the sake of convenience, not display -- for instance, comfort reads and old favorites might go in the bedroom, where I can easily grab one and curl up to read, and reference books might go in the office near the computer. But right now, the layout of the apartment is such that I wanted to keep all of the books together. I'm not too concerned what they say about me, possibly because I don't get a lot of visitors. They're also not as organized as I would like, which I suppose many would say is the sign of a disorganized mind . . . or maybe sheer laziness!

at #8 Booksloth:

"I always feel very sad when I enter a house and find shelves full of pristine, beautifully bound, unread books."

It's even worse when you enter a house that has built-in bookshelves and it's crammed with knick-knacks and not a book in sight anywhere in the house.

>8 Booksloth: Booksloth:

"I always feel very sad when I enter a house and find shelves full of pristine, beautifully bound, unread books."

Being a collector as well as a reader, my library looks like you describe, even though about 1/3 of the books have been read. I'm very careful with my books while reading them, and keep a separate reading journal instead of marking the margins. So, upon its return to the shelf, a book looks much as it did when removed for reading.

Os.

>10 Ciarda: My books and my knick-knacks are always at war with each other for shelf space. I have 13 full length bookcases in my 2 rooms and 4 of them are fully knick-knacks only, 1.5 are for other media (games), and the top portion of most of them house non-book items. I feel torn all the time about my book-to-knack ratio, but I love pretty things so my solution is to simply add more shelves as opportunity (and wall space) permit.

(pics)

>12 macsbrains:: Wow! I don't think yours really classify as knick-knacks, they look more like collector's items. You at least have a large ratio of books though so it doesn't seem too bad to me.

>12 macsbrains: Amazing - do you dust? ;-)

>13 Ciarda: I tell myself it only looks off because all the books are double-stacked. (Nevermind that the ponies are quintuple-stacked...)

>14 abbottthomas: I tried to convince my little sister to dust as part of earning her keep whenever she visited us, but she was on to me. Now she is a teenager and still doesn't dust so that didn't work out quite as well as I'd hoped.

The books get re-jenga-ed all the time due to a constant influx of new books, so they don't get too dusty, and the doors help with the toys, but the top shelf probably needs a good dusting seeing as I can't even reach the top 2 shelves (my other half is almost a foot taller than I am.)