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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

I don't trust people who don't have any books in their houses.

356 replies

WayHarshTai · 08/09/2013 21:12

I think they are a bit evil.

My sister and her DH only have a couple of Jamie Oliver books and THAT'S IT. Freaks.

I get a bit twitchy if I visit someone and I can't see their bookshelf, I have been known to snoop on the pretext of finding the loo or something to put my mind at rest.

I think it shows trerrible character and possibly criminal leanings to not have hundreds some books around the house.

AIBU? I know i'm not really, it's just common sense.

OP posts:
LegoDragon · 08/09/2013 23:05

I love tablets. You can have the music on so easily, the internet, loads of games, newspapers and news, catalogues and shops, and of course thousands and thousands of books to read and enjoy, all in a thin, small object which you can take away with you and use anywhere. I love books but I love the modern/near future online/on tablet way too.

usualsuspect · 08/09/2013 23:06

I agree reading is a hobby

Doesn't bother me in the slightest if people don't read or own a million books

usualsuspect · 08/09/2013 23:09

I've never paid full price for a book in my life

ShakeAndVac · 08/09/2013 23:09

Also, what if you want to read them again? I love re-reading books.

This! I do have a clear out every now and again, as we would literally be battling our way through the house and having to hack a clear route through if we didn't. Smile
How do you give away ALL your books though?! There's lots that I could never part with as I'm forever re-reading them! Some I've read about eleventy million times and I still might want to again...
If you've got no books in the house and no kindle either, then what do you read? Genuine question, but do you never read at all?

ShakeAndVac · 08/09/2013 23:10

I agree reading is a hobby

No. Sorry, I disagree and this probably makes me sound snobby but ah well.
Reading is NOT a hobby, it's a way of life. Reading is knowledge. Knowledge is power.
The more you read the more you know and that can only be a good thing Grin

VaultFullOfTwizzlers · 08/09/2013 23:12

Has anyone else had a clear-out before moving to find that they have three or four copies of their favourite books?

I've moved a lot and am always buying them again from charity shops thinking they have gone when the book and all its previous editions are in a box in the loft.

Dawndonnaagain · 08/09/2013 23:13

CAn' t make notes on a kindle, apart from which I hate the name and ideas it conjures. I will never own one.

usualsuspect · 08/09/2013 23:15

Reading books is a hobby

If I want to know something. I google it

wigglesrock · 08/09/2013 23:16

No, its a hobby, I do it in my spare time. It's really not a way of life, it might be the thing you love to do most in the whole world, it may be an escape, an acceptance, time to think but it's not a way of life. Knowledge may be power but it doesn't need to come from a book.

usualsuspect · 08/09/2013 23:19

See my kindle fire is duel purpose books and the internet in one

Win win

CHJR · 08/09/2013 23:20

You are all missing OP's point. Books spontaneously generate in our house (apparently out of the second socks and clothes hangers, which is why THOSE keep vanishing). Those of you who don't have this problem are clearly fumigating with some kind of gas that is going to kill all of us real people, which is why we are dubious about you.
And waddya mean you have room for a BED but not a BOOKCASE? You are probably the same people who think it more obvious to have, say, a cooker or a shower?
DS1 (aged 13) walked into the room where I was last night and looked around puzzled. "Why aren't there any bookcases in here?" he asked. It was a bathroom.

CHJR · 08/09/2013 23:22

p.s. I DO have a Kindle. Actually we have 3, plus some iThings with Kindle apps. But they have this annoying failure to sink with the paper versions, can't understand why Apple don't sort this out.

ArtexMonkey · 08/09/2013 23:23

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Mintyy · 08/09/2013 23:25

Indeed.

Dawndonnaagain · 08/09/2013 23:27

Reading is a way of life. I'm a lecturer!

PaulSmenis · 08/09/2013 23:28

I think I've rebelled against the middle class must have oodles of books on display thinking. My parents have an infinite amount of books on display, but Steven King and the like is hidden upstairs. Grin

I keep my remaining ones in my upstairs cupboards because I don't like dusting them. E-readers are the future. Books will soon be like 12" records. Books are nice to have, but I can?t help thinking that bookcases look untidy and things with loads of shelves are bad Feng Shui. I keep my Feng Shui books in a cupboard too.

inadreamworld · 08/09/2013 23:28

I agree OP. Very suspicious. Mother in Law hates books and only reads magazines and watches TV. DH rebelled against this evil regime and has huge amounts of books as do I.

CHJR · 08/09/2013 23:33

OK. All joking aside, of course no one is saying you have to have books around. If you want to psychologise it, in my birth family there was a lot of disruption and loss and moving around (refugees) and I think we've mostly reacted by accumulating lots of anchors, which books really are. Heavy, for one thing.
But I know lots of readers who don't keep books. I even know and love people who don't read books, or who only read nonfiction, which is my view is basically the same thing. (Nonfiction being just one step up from the newspaper, ie fish wrapping tomorrow.) Some of my best friends don't have books
But I think we're all mad really, in our own ways. I've met people who instead of books get very attached to their huge wardrobes of clothes, their cars, their wine cellars, their mug collection, their thimble collection, their ancestral houses, their points of view, their country and nationality, their political opinions for which they will gladly sacrifice their books, ancestral houses, country and ok stop there WHO has been giving this woman wine again (eds)

grumpyoldbat · 08/09/2013 23:37

In what way is my character terrible and what crimes do you think I'm guilty of?

CHJR · 08/09/2013 23:39

But if you don't keep your Stephen King right there between Kemal and Kingsolver you do suffer from an element of shame and showing-off, that I agree.
(You DO all keep your books, even if they're only a few, in alphabetical order, right? Like your spices?)

ArtexMonkey · 08/09/2013 23:40

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

PaulSmenis · 08/09/2013 23:41

Actually, the majority of what I read is non-fiction, which probably makes me some sort of evil psychopath.

ShadowSummer · 08/09/2013 23:44

CHJR - fiction books in alphabetical order by authors surname of course.

Toddler DS's board books not included here. He'll have to learn the alphabet before we can expect him to order them properly on the shelves Wink

Although I disagree about non-fiction not really counting. I've got some very interesting non-fiction books (roughly ordered by subject matter) on my shelves.

CHJR · 08/09/2013 23:45

No, PaulSmensis, to be fair it probably just makes you male. Have you checked lately?

CHJR · 08/09/2013 23:47

OK, Shadow, but if the same author popped out essays or poetry do they go with the novels or separately? What about their autobiography? What if it's just a biography? I wake up at 3 a.m. fretting sometimes. Other times I run out of space in one section and have to change policy, usually at 3 a.m.
One of many good things about my Kindle is it delivers books even at 3 a.m.