Books: Do you look for them when entering somebodies house for the first time ?

[Shosha1]

I must admit I do. I love to see what people are reading. It always gives me a sense of them.
Absence of books make me feel uneasy for some reason.
Which is absolutely stupid, as you wont find one in my house.
I cant hold a heavy book now as Lupus has affected my hands, so I read on a kindle, but most of my 500 odd books are on audible.
DH has all his on audible too.
We do have childrens ones for DGC tho.

Yes, anyone who said they kept their books upstairs’ either lives in a mansion or doesn’t read much

Please come back and explain the link between books being kept upstairs and not reading a lot? Try as I might I can't work out why this would be unless for some reason your stairs were broken and you were stuck on the ground floor.

On the strength of this thread I’ve finally managed to clear and re-sort more shelves in the office and In the piano room to rearrange my books.

It’s been a smashing afternoon!

You don’t need a mansion to keep books in - I’ve got more than 3,000 tucked upstairs on high level book shelves.

Of course I look. Who doesn't?

Er - me. I'd have thought most people, if I'm honest. Seems quite strange to me.

I look at furnishing, the garden, the home as a way of getting another idea of the person.

Why are all you people in the living rooms of people you don't already know ?

*I look at furnishing, the garden, the home as a way of getting another idea of the person

Why are all you people in the living rooms of people you don't already know ?

Read the the OP's OP and thread title.

Yes, anyone who said they kept their books upstairs’ either lives in a mansion or doesn’t read much

What a load of bullshit! What about normal people who have more room upstairs than downstairs? Say you live in a house with a kitchen/diner/living room and two bedrooms? You have much more room upstairs or on the shelves beside the stairs than you will do downstairs, especially if you are squeezing in a sofa and a dining table instead of just chairs.

Nope. I have no interest in that particular pastime. I used to have loads of books. I have hardly any now, whereas, a few years back, you would have found, Bukowski, through to Proust.

Read the the OP's OP and thread title.

I have, echt.

I had before I posted, and I've re-read now. I still don't get it.

Always, im judgemental

Yes I look at other people's shelves, usually with a view to borrowing anything interesting...

I always used to look. I remember asking my mum about a friends family when I was little ‘but where do they keep their books?’ And being very puzzled when mum said she didn’t think they read many books.

I also used to look at album collections and later still videos and DVDs. All that is over now. Certainly nearly everything I read, watch or listen to is now digitised. Its been a godsend over the last month. Having a whole world of books, magazines, tv programmes, films, papers, even theatre easily available has been a great comfort. I even do digital jigsaws - no chance of losing piece of sky under the sofa anymore!

I do like my Kindle for reading individual books but as a bookshelf it's useless. Nothing to flip through, nothing to attract my attention. With real books I sometimes stop reading half way through, pick up something else, go back to it. If I put the Kindle down I often forget to pick it up again, forget what I'm reading, because there isn't a half-read book left out to remind me. It doesn't show me books or switch between different books easily, it is very textbased and very linear. In some ways I prefer the kindle app on my phone, I can flip through the covers of books and see what's there instead of painfully stepping down layers of menu and paging through lists of book titles, very uninspiring. I do like it very much for for taking on holiday, I can carry loads of books, it reads well in bright daylight and and it doesn't need much recharging. It's also good for storing whole series (though often in the wrong order) But books on a shelf are nicer (and of course they don't have the problem of thinking of something to read and finding it on the Kindle which i haven't picked up for a while and it needs charging before I can start!)

As for first impressions... I do associated the presence of books, not so much with "being well read" but with intellectual curiosity. I'm sure it is much less true nowadays, what with the internet and e-books, but I was used to seeing academics surrounded by stacks of books, at work and at home, not just textbooks and not just on their own topics but just generally being bookworms, having rooms full of books, piles of them... old, new, taking up space. Many years ago, long before e-books, I started working at a university and the head of department invited us to a staff party at his home. I felt very uncomfortable as if he was somehow fake but I couldn't put my finger on why. It was only long afterwards that I realised there wasn't a book anywhere in sight.

Tabby - me too!

I guess... keeping a book on a Kindle is a bit like keeping a box of chocolates in a cupboard. Yes you can get it out and eat a chocolate anytime you like. But a bookshelf is like keeping an open box of chocolates on the table, every time you walk past there are yummy treats saying "going on... pick another one... you know you want to..."