Do you have bookcases filled with books at home?

[CatteryCatss]

I grew up without books at home, but my DM frequently read magazines.

Surprisingly, I turned out to be a big reader in adulthood. I have bookcases either side of the chimney breast filled with books (as well as LEGO sets and a couple of ornaments) I also have a bookcase on my stairs and in the office, which are filled.

Whenever I visit my DM, I’m reminded of my childhood without books and it makes me quite sad!

Yes I have bookcases in most room of my house and I'm pleased that my children and grandchildren are also avid readers. I do think growing up surrounded by books makes a huge difference.

No.
I dont revisit fiction books and would find the "clutter" of loads of bookcases quite annoying to live with as i'm very minimalist. Ive got a couple of photography books i wont part with but theyre in a drawer.
I do read, although lately ive switched to audible.

This.
I can't remember not being able to read. I grew up on a house full of books.

Oh, I see that, I just hate being read to! I was a very early reader, probably because my parents weren’t fully literate so reading was very halting and they didn’t enjoy it. Which probably feeds into my adult dislike of being read to, or a slow pace of delivery.

@UpMyself @Whoarethoseguys

I feel it's being surrounded by readers that makes that difference.

I know tons of readers but very few people who live in houses with lots of books.

I've read a study that found that having books in the house correlated with all sorts of things like educational achievement, vocabulary, job attainment. Correlation not causation but still.

Yes, everything from childhood books to economics text books from university to hobby books & novels from adulthood.

My teen son is taking over my bookcases though. At last count he has about 200 novels from Harry Potter forwards.

I can't imagine a world without books. 😊

For 'readers' your reading comprehension is very low.

It's not about books on display or not, it's about the snobbish attitudes like those displayed on this thread.

Otherwise it's personal choice

Most of mine are non-fiction - reference books etc. The remainder are novels I will not part with, and some I have read and re-read a couple of dozen times. My Dick Francis collection in particular. A couple of those are literally falling apart now. I sometimes buy paperbacks from charity shops and car boot sales, and they tend to get read once and go straight back to the charity shop again.

I'm currently writing a novel, and I'm fairly keen to read books in that particular genre at the moment so I can see what publishers are after.

"Supposedly, it's a good correlation with children's educational attainment; how many books are in a home."

Yes, but attempts to replicate it haven't worked e.g. sending books to the home. They've also shown that it makes no difference whether the children engage with those books or not. It's just having the kind of parents who own lots of books.

Or read books or encourage it.
Mum grew up with no books because Gm couldn't really read past mid elementary.
Mum did well. She had acumen and grandma who encourages her. Took her to library etc (couldn't afford books really).

It's all about parents and the kid. Encouragement is everything.

Yes.

There are bookcases overflowing with books all over the house although anything we didn’t enjoy or think much of goes straight into the charity shop pile.

We love books. Reading them, re-reading them, talking about them, recommending them, handling them, admiring them, browsing them and buying them for ourselves and as presents, gives us immense pleasure.

A tablet isn’t as satisfying to handle and reading on a screen is more tiring, although I was very grateful to be able to read on an iPad when I broke my wrist and didn’t have one hand to hold a book and another to turn the pages. But when I was better it was straight back to traditional books for me.

The books are most definitely there for us, not to display to other people. Homes are for living in and we like living with a lot of books.

I grew up with books and my mum took us to the library regularly.

I have books in bookcases I want to read, but my favourite time and place to read is in bed at night, and DH just wants to go to sleep, so kindle it is most of the time.

I also find it a lot easier to hold a kindle when lying down.

i didn’t say it did, and of course it doesn’t. I was merely commenting on my childhood and how having lots of books defo did contribute to my love of reading from a young age..

I just don't accept that growing up surrounded by books is good for children.

Growing up with a family that reads is good for children. I've known families with walls of book covered shelves who never read. The children don't become readers either. It isn't owning books that creates reading children. It's reading with them, to them and in front of them.

We have a lot of books, but we do reread and many of them are now out also out of print. I have reading friends who prefer a Kindle and others who much prefer physical books. Physical books can also be lent, which is always nice to do. I would argue children, especially young ones, do better with physical books, because it’s easier for them to browse and choose and return to old favourites. Physical books also contain a history of their own if owned and reread and loved for long enough. One off reads might as well be on the Kindle.

Household of bookworms here. We have custom-built, double stacked, floor to ceiling bookcases along one long side of our through-lounge, DC have their own double stacked Billy-type bookcases in their bedrooms, and there are more books in my bedroom. I also have over 600 Kindle books (I tend to buy more eBooks than physical books these days, although I still buy paper books too). I have always appreciated the privilege of having so many books of my own and the joy of reading.

Just a couple of small bookcases filled with biographies, poetry, cerebral literature and scientific tomes.

Oh, and hidden behind a door a giant floor to ceiling cupboard filled with horror, fantasy and trashy supernatural romances!😁

Amazon have now changed how you can manage your Kindle books and there are only a few days left to be able to download them:

I didn’t even know downloading them to PC was an option! He does makes some good points in the video.

We have far more books than bookshelves, and many bookshelves double stacked.
Piles on floor and window sills.

I posted this earlier on another thread about this....

I think people are getting very confused by all this - I certainly was, so I have gone off and checked it. It is not the case that you will be unable to download books on to your computer/tablet/phone - you will still be able to do that and to read them through the Kindle app. Basically, you can download via wi-fi to the Kindle or the app as most people already do.

The thing that is being removed is the ability to download via USB cable. This type of download changes the format of the book that is downloaded, and the "problem" with this is that beyond backing up your books somewhere that isn't Amazon, then the books can be made readable by other e-readers or remove the DRM that prevents people pirating the ebooks.

Now you can have your own opinion about whether this is "fair" or not. But for probably 99% of people they buy Amazon e-books because they have the Kindle or the Kindle app and it will make almost no difference to them at all. The point about books being removed from Amazon "permissions" may be an issue for some people, as might automatic updates if a book changes in some way, but probably very few (and most of them probably didn't know about the possibility either).

So for most people the change has no impact at all and they won't notice anything different. You are not tied to Amazon devices - you are tied to Amazon software, and many of us thought that was the case anyway! Or couldn't be arsed converting the books to other ereaders when you have a Kindle and / or at least two versions of the app....

which is the entire point, that you are again missing
if you go to a friend/colleague/random's house, do you spend time poking round their bedroom/spare room/attic/landings to do a book inventory?
No, unless you are on come dine with me, you'd usually go to one room (living/kitchen) and might visit a downstairs loo.
So all of the 'smug no-book judgers' could be judging someone who just likes to keep an entertaining space free of clutter but has a full on library elsewhere in their house! (or, yet again, on their kindle)

That's how ridiculous it is to 'feel sad' if someone doesn't visibly have books on display, because it has no bearing on whether they don't have books at all, if not why they don't, or how much they read!

All these people owning multiple books...yet apparently without even basic reading comprehension if you need such basic correlations to be spelled out for you....

again, it's nothing to do with whether the parents own lots of books
they could be refugees with literary PHDs who weren't able to bring their libraries with them
or just parents who can't afford to buy lots of books but take their kids to the library twice a week

yet again = not owning lots of books isn't analogous to = doesn't read often

Apart from a single self of random books - James Bond, Finnegan's Wake, The Song of Bernadette, I grew up without books because we were pretty poor, but we were always at the library.

I have groaning bookcases now, and cull them bi-annually.

I see we've already had the disapprovers of books because it's a form of boasting. They always pop up on these threads.

I don't judge the apparently book-less/free but am always curious when someone does have them as, like their furniture, artwork, etc. tells me bit more about them. Or I infer it at least.