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.

Back in the real world most people aren’t actually judging each other on whether they have books in their house or not! I’m certainly not.
Interesting, because everyone doing TV from their house is keen up to do it in their room of books.

losersaywhat yeah most people read in bed surely?

If people have very prominent bookshelves full of high brow literature on display then it makes me think that they are very keen to come across as an intellectual (possibly insecure about it). Otherwise, it isn't something I really pay attention to.

“ Interesting, because everyone doing TV from their house is keen up to do it in their room of books”

I’m really sorry I don’t understand what this sentence means!

I’m slightly appalled at some of the judgements in here. We have hundreds of books all over the house. Including classics which dh and I have both read and enjoyed. I don’t know many other houses with books in the living room. I don’t, in honesty, have many friends that read. I don’t judge them for not reading. Why should I? I am not trying to be pretentious or intellectual. I am just enjoying a hobby. Why should anyone else care?

I am nosy about books and always curious about whats on a persons shelves. I agree it does give you an insight.

However if someone came to my house chances are they wouldn't see any even though I have a bit of a domestic library with 1000s of books as they are all in a room on the 1st floor in a spare room I also use as a study / reading room.

I think this is true for many people so be careful of judging the apparently bookless, they might just have more books than you!

For the same reason I would judge someone who had a huge gaming station set up in their living room, I don’t enjoy gaming. Doesn’t mean I judge them to be awful or unlikeable (DP is a gamer) but I would judge them to have different interests to me and make a judgement on wha kind of conversations we would have/common ground in.

@Smellbellina

Yes, anyone who said they kept their books ‘upstairs’ either lives in a mansion or doesn’t read much. I don’t keep every book I read, some are crap and others I circulate/swap, but I have a copy of every special one

Bullshit. I keep my books upstairs because that's where I happen to have room for my bookcase. Although I mostly read on Kindle nowadays. But judge away.

I judge people on their bookcase appearance. By that, I mean creating a bookcase which you think people will be impressed by. DH’s aunt has a beautiful set of bookcases filled with a number of first editions or leather bound hard back copies of ‘impressive’ books. DH’s aunt is a huge bookworm (she will have read most of the books on a paper copy at some point but they aren’t her favourites) and we’ve had many conversations about books, recommended books to each other. Most of the books she actually reads are on kindle or she drops them off at the charity shop when she’s read them, as they clutter her ‘nice’ bookshelf. We have one bookcase in our house and that’s groaning under the weight of books as it is (although there are some stray piles of books in the bedrooms that people don’t see). We have one bookcase because otherwise we’d too easily get swamped by books and it’s too easy to end up with the house overrun by books. The difference between our bookcase and DH aunt’s - ours is not there with the intention to impress anyone, ours is a mix match of our favourite books. The majority are cooking books (I love buying cooking books and flicking through them, even though some of them I’ve never made a recipe from and probably never will) but the rest are books we can’t bear to throw away. It’s a medley, it has DH’s copies of lord of the rings and hobbit, our copies of Harry Potter, an illustrated copy of the secret garden and a few novels that got missed during the last clear out. With DH aunt being a massive bookworm, what I actually want to see is her well-read copy of Pride and Prejudice, that copy of Jane Eyre that has the pages sellotaped together because she’s read it so much, her full collection of the crime author she enjoys - rather than the manufactured, what she thinks will impress someone bookcase.

I'm slightly appalled that commenting on a love of physical books results in being called 'competitive', 'virtue signalling', 'judgemental' and not living in the real world.

By people who have never set eyes on me.

Today's pretty depressing already. Damned if I'm going to be shouted down and shamed into grovelling regret for expressing an opinion.

But judge away.

Thanks for your permission, it means so much.

I live in a 3 bed terrace and have a huge book case on the landing upstairs. And we have bookcases in each of the three bedrooms.

None downstairs or on display though.

Books everywhere here. The ones in the bookcases - are mostly non fiction which are looked at many many times.

I love books. To me they make a house a home although I appreciate not everyone likes reading. I'll never understand people who don't read though. I always comment positively on bookcases and think they are wonderful. All they information just there waiting to be absorbed. All those different worlds and experiences just waiting to be explored. I have bookcases or shelves in every room. I kept my childhood books and they are now being read by my dc. If you can't see any books in a house then they don't have enough of them unless they have a library (my dream is to have a room that is a library). I do judge to some extent if people don't have books. Yes, people read downloaded books now but what about old books from childhood or those handed down the generations? To me one of the greatest pleasures has always been curling up in bed with a book. Books are like old friends-a comfort and a joy for which I feel the fondest love.

I used to be judgey about it until I moved somewhere where there was a cupboard to make a little library. I only have coffee table books in the living room. You can always tell if someone's a reader though.

@Bercows put it better than me

I have no books from my childhood because my house burnt down as a teenager so I can't read them with my children.
My children have hundreds of picture books in their bedroom many of which I bought based on Mumsnet threads. They have a reading nook with quotes from my favourite books on the walls.
I don't have hard copies of books because I have nowhere to put them.
I don't get to go to bookshops any more as I have two young children.
I read a couple of books a week from all genres which I can pick out from.my own home. (Especially convenient at the moment)
I don't reread books for the same reason I don't go to the same place on holiday twice.
The written word gives the same story and no matter what device or leather bound tome you read it from.
I wouldn't judge my reading based on lack of bookshelves.

Well I might glance over some of the titles If I see some on shelves but it’s not something that I will be looking for when visiting someone’s house.
I’ve got some on shelves in the front room and all the cookery books on a shelf in the kitchen.
Dc have got books on shelves in their rooms.
I Definitely don’t keep them all, The ones on my shelves are either my favourites, book club ones, ones that I’m keeping to give to people and some that I know I’ll read again.
But I don’t like too many books cluttering up the place so I tend to keep what I’ve got under control.
I read a lot on my kindle now for that reason.
I love reading and usually get through 2 or 3 a week, sometimes more, but I just couldn’t be arsed to keep finding places to store them particularly if I know i wouldn’t read them again.

I love seeing books in a home. I love books. We have books all over the house!

The people criticising book owners for being snobs and the like remind me of the bastard ex.

I came home from work one day to find that he'd chucked out every single book I owned (except for one that had miraculously slipped down the back that I had won aged 16 for getting the highest GCSE mark in the year in English Literature) and smashed up the bookcase because he said I was being a snob/showing off/etc.

I have never had enough money to get anything like the amount I had - I've just got one Billy crammed full, a small CD case crammed, the top of DP's CD rack has them wedged up by the ceiling and the spare room/studio has three sets of shelves full of the ones relating to Music. The other half size Billys are jammed full of CDs.

What I really want is an entire wall of purpose built shelves to store everything. And the income to be able to afford the books to fill them.

Yes. I'd warm to someone with heaps of books and I'd notice if there wasn't a book in sight. Judge away, I don't care.

Yes, of course. And I absolutely judge anyone who thinks that books are clutter, who doesn’t comprehend the concept of rereading, thinks that books should only be consumed on a Kindle or immediately donated the second you’ve turned the final page, or thinks that having bookshelves of ‘highbrow literature’ suggests an intellectual inferiority complex.

So if I said I read and enjoyed Proust for pleasure, would that make me intellectual or a total snob?

Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear, oh dear.

I've been judged. By someone I don't know on Mumsnet.

Guilty m'lord.

I'm going offline now, such is the shame upon my shoulders.

Mumsnet has spoken.

(for the record, I haven't called anyone a snob or anything else. I just said I don't reread books and give them to charity instead because I feel they clutter MY house but I don't care what you do in YOUR house)

N'night

I’d be thrilled to encounter another Proust fan, @Geraniumblue. I might ask whether you’re a Conrad hater. My theory is that not many people love both.