Why is it easy to tell someone's gender by their bookcase?

Glad to know it's not just me DCMB.

LRD nothing wrong with that - I like nothing better than a nose at other people's bookshelves. I always feel reassured if we have at least one book in common (how reassured I am will depend on the actual book of course).

Christine personally I don't think you could ever tell that there wasn't a man in the house by the books - even if it was wall-to-wall pastel-covered chick-lit so many men don't read at all (more than women, I think?) it wouldn't mean there wasn't a man there.

A lot of our books are in common, but I think you could easily tell his and mine - he has typical geeky comics/graphic novels, I have a fair amount of chick lit. But then again, with friends of ours, she works in comic book publishing and has all the 'bloky' comics/graphic novels/sci fi, and he has the classic novels.

You'd also be confused by ours because DH shelves his DVDs with books and enjoys rom coms.

I love nosing into other people's bookshelves, I'm sad that way.

Mine has a ridiculous variety - everything from Tolkien and Pratchett to crime - Christie, Bateman, Brookmyre, Chicklit esp Sophie Kinsella, history, science like Goldacre, classics like Austen, Dickens etc. The "to read" corner currently has the latest "shopoholic", Handmaid's Tale, the Red Dwarf novel (bookclub), a historical book about American Folk culture and Poisonwood Bible.

One of the things I found really exciting about the first time I went to the boyf's was going through his bookcase and seeing how much overlap we actually had (and new things I could borrow at some point!)

Our bookshelves combine Bloke Books in the sense of truly awful sci-fi/fantasy, Wimmins Books in the sense of my extensive collection of Women's Press/Virago/Pandora etc books, Literate Books (some the remainder of my English degree so gender neutral), Pratchett (oh yes) and better sci fi/fantasy (so gender neutral), and gory thrillers (mine).

It is a joy to behold, our house, in its own very special way

Lol & stuff You've just reminded me of the girlfriends who came to visit my new flat - and told me my books weren't feminine enough! They promptly bought me acres of emotional-type novels. To be fair, they picked reasonably challenging ones that I enjoyed. But, ever since then, I've always made sure there were a few "women's books" to the forefront. Hmm ...

I don't think you'd be able to tell here, DP's books are mostly art related, some IT and some graphic novels. Mine cover such a big range that some would probably be attributed to DP, feminism, Sci-fi and fantasy, classics, women's history, a few historical novels, British history, druidry, cooking, fibre arts.

The cookery books in our house are DHs...

I own most of the books in the house, I have three huge bookcases in the room I'm in and I can only see one or two that I didnt buy-bio of Thatcher and an Isaac Asimov.

Majority is history/fantasy/Sci-Fi/Classics as thats what I choose to read, but its social history rather than military and there are quite a lot of women's history books. I also have a lot of zombie novels including a graphic novel series. Most people who briefly scan the shelves assume that they are DH's until they are put right, although those who take the time to scan the titles generally assume that its 50/50 (again until they are put right ).

DH went through a political bio stage but he pretty much only reads sci-fi/fantasy now- he has just reread the only series that we shared when we got together (tad williams fantasy). He prefers a male protagonist and I prefer a female although he will usually try things I recommend.

Interesting. I'm single so all the books in my house are mine. There are a lot of fiction but also a lot of travel books, DIY/car maintenance books, art history and leftist history books. Oh and a whole shelf of feminist theory. I wonder if anyone could tell there wasn't a man in the house?

Almost all of our books are either reference or text books (we home ed)
Text books from key stage 1 English to A'level biology and Davidson's medicine and everything in between.
Most of my books are factual, History esp the holocaust and 20th century, antiques, furniture restoration, feminism, politics, ethics, social work and a few early 20th century Sci Fi.
A few novels like point counter point, Madame Bovary, but nothing really new and no female authors.
DH reads novels when he does read. DS1 has lots of history books and never reads fiction and DS2 loves fiction.

In short we must be a weird bunch who don't totally conform!

"Having said that, DH has a male friend who only reads fiction if it by a feminist author. His bookshelves are full of feminist books." Milly does he have a cue of women outside his house

I am a Pratchett nut, yes, I have the postcard but sadly not yet the t-shirt

Most of what I know about the world came from Pratchett and Douglas Adams!

DH and I pretty much share the contents of the family bookshelf - we both enjoy fiction and there's no particular gender bias in our choices of author. I probably read crime fiction and parenting books more than he does and he's more likely to read political or philosophical non-fiction. But on the whole we massively overlap and often like the same sort of stuff.
He does have a pile of graphic novels and pretty much everything Terry Pratchett ever wrote from before we met. But I happily dip into those when I'm in the mood.

I don't know, I can't actually think of a genre of book I haven't got some of, though of course some more than others

DP has 2 joke books

You must be a Pratchett nut too Nac, do you have a feegle-spotting t-shirt?

The only highly gendered books in our house are record collecting books, feminist books and as Trillian put it, a bit of dodgy vampire fiction (NOT Twilight).

Having said that, DH has a male friend who only reads fiction if it by a feminist author. His bookshelves are full of feminist books.

Mine are mostly sci-fi, some music bios, a lot of books about language. The Enid Blytons might give me away though :p

Most of our books are mine, and there is a lot of fantasy and sci-fi, which are apparently typically male. But Delusions of Gender and some crappy vampire shit would give me away as a woman.

Is it that women could easily read male-type books but that men would never have any female-type books?

So the same way if a person was described as wearing jeans and a red t-shirt and converse they could be male or female, but if they were wearing a skirt and heels then you would assume they were female.

Well I am a twenty-something who currently lives alone, and my bookcase includes:

• Popular science and popular economics books
• Lots of Oliver Sachs
• Red Dwarf, Monty Python and Blackadder tie-ins or scripts
• Agathe Christie and PD James
• Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings and Stephen King
• CS Lewis and the His Dark Materials triology
• James Herriot, David Taylor, Gerald Durrell
• Tom Clancy, Dan Brown and various trashy thrillers

I think that's an acceptably broad spectrum. Pretty much the only things that are banned are chick-lit and misery memoirs.

DH only reads science fiction - about as stereotypically male as you can get without eschewing fiction altogether.

All the books I can see at the moment are mine, bar one (possibly two, more of that later). Lots of stuff that I think most people would guess as belonging to a man, if forced to guess - Michael Marshall thrillers, China Mieville scifi/fantasy, two volumes of the Barefoot Gen series (graphic novel set in Hiroshima just before and after the bomb), a graphic novel about 9/11, some Iain Banks (the one book that definitely belongs to DH is an Iain M Banks, to be precise), Battle Royale ... Some you'd be hard pushed to guess - Cloud Atlas, Northern Lights, Roddy Doyle. The dead giveaways that there's a woman in the picture are A Life's Work, Misconceptions, Dream Babies and a few others.

There are also three shelves of cookery books. :o

I happen to be able to see a copy of the single book we had in common when we got together - Feersum Endjinn by Iain M Banks. Not sure if it's his copy or mine (I gave the duplicate away). We've since read a few books in common, but it's rare, as even though I do read science fiction I tend to like things he doesn't, and vice versa.

Hmm, we have a lot of overlap in our house although it's true that DP has more crime and history books than me. DP definitely has a higher tolerance for non-fiction than me.
Isn't there a whole thing about how women will read books by male or female authors but men are often weirdly prejudiced against women authors? I'm sure I didn't just make that up

Ours are broadly similar, but dh has more heavy duty history books. I'm the one with the physics books

Dh and i read a lot of the same books, but he wouldn't touch some of my books by female authors with female main characters (few exceptions but not many) and i wouldn't touch is trashier sci fi or fantasy.

We share the same taste in 'good books' but not in 'trash' i guess.

oh and i read/have/buy about ten or twenty for every one he reads/buys.