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

[WayHarshTai]

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.

LOL at competitive television size.

You might win on Mumsnet but they would slay you on Netmums and hun you while they were at it.

They'd also be telling you that it you budgeted properly and stopped buying luxuries like books and fresh fruit that one day you might be able to afford a surround sound system.

I am sunken to the plough of despond by the explanation for the deeper Billies. I had noted during my last investigative visit to Ik*a, that they now come in two depths, what on earth are people buying by way of Ornaments? Special holders for resting Kindles? Why dont they make shallower Billies too, for the penguin-sized?

My living room is tiny, I don't have room for a big bookcase and a telly.

The telly won.

YABU, well I think so, I love books myself (especially reading one all snug in bed in the wintertime) but not everyone does, I encourage people to like them but I would never say I don't trust them if they don't...or that they're evil!! ha ha . Self-confessed bookworm here!

You can always use the deeper shelves for the mustard, Pamish. The whole-grain stuff often comes in fancier jars.
Now I don't know about you lot but I personally NOT BEING in New Zealand am going to bed with possibly a detour via the V Woolf or maybe the Robert Carrier

Jeanette Winterson's bed in her first book, was built on Penguins. I dont recall the number but you can look it up, in a book. Seventy-something IIRC, placed side by side, exactly fit under a single mattress.

That's right, and Paul Auster in Moon Palace, all his furniture. Speaking of moons, GOOD NIGHT! You all are a Bad Influence on a school night!

My family are voracious readers but most of the books are upstairs! Also we have iPads now so anything new tends to be downloaded.

BTW just to really mess everyone up for the rest of the night, I thought Dorange's comment on the first page was spot on. I also came from one of those countries, but then I came from one of those families. So all the corrupt educated officials had books, all the opposition had books, everyone dragged everyone out of their flat to prison at about this hour of the night for having the wrong books, and next thing you know the people who were getting bombed were the ones who hadn't had any books in the first place. I betcha it's happening in Syria now. Notice the newspaper photos of bombed houses never show any scattered books. Or bodies. Howzat for a downer? True but this is why I stick to worrying about my MiL's mustard, and Paul Auster. But Dorange, I hope you're here safe with us now.

There are plenty of high-level criminals who have thousands of books. YABU.

But..but, kindles & ereaders don't smell of book. I luff book smell.

Yanbu.

When I emigrated a quarter of my shipment was books, and that was only after giving away loads, the charity shop even sent us a box of chocs as a thank you! But I do think there is a huge amount of poncery on this thread, id rather use our kindles for throwaway fiction, although I will continue to buy paper cook books and reference books, anything that I will pick up again really. It's actually pretty liberating to have good rid of the mountains of paperbacks I had.

That's what I do glasto - it makes sense.I love my kindle and I never kept paperback fiction I'd already read anyway, unless it was something I thought my dh or DCs might one day read.

I bet there are people with tellies so big and houses so small that they do away with the house and live inside the telly.

I don't get all the angst about no books and feeling 'twitchy'.

Really? I couldn't give a toss as to whether someone has books or not.

I reserve twitchy feelings for situations such as, being on the red on the petrol guage, being stuck in traffic when I have to be picking up the DC's in 5 mins from nursery etc

All my books are in my bedroom, bar a few cooking books in the kitchen.
The bedroom books are stored in the headboard ( has shelves inside it) so aren't obvious either. You'd probably freak out if you came to mine

I don't have any books on display, looks messy

I don't like the look of them really

Really!

Most people think I am quite anal about clutter, but even I can't bring myself to think that books look messy or untidy. They add character and personality to a home, just like paintings and photographs.

why do people still buy books? I understand that some books don't work well on e-readers (about 1% of all books) but for novels? Why would you buy print? Even my dad now has a Kindle and he's a Luddite.

Yanbu!

ps- if you read enough, Amazon give you free Kindles. My best friend downloads around 20 books a month (no kids=time to read) and she has always persuaded Amazon to send her the kindles for free.

I hate it when people come onto these threads just to perform some reverse snobbery on those of us who still prefer actual paper books. Yeah, yeah, we get it, you're sooo modern and use your sodding i-whatever for everything.
I'm not going to fall for the hype produced by the people who make those readers - they will never be as good as a book you can properly hold. Ever.

tbh I do feel weird if I'm in someone's house and there are no visible books. But these days most people have DVDs instead - now THAT seems wasteful to me, plus they're not as pretty!

How can liking e-readers be reverse snobbery? I like mine as I can also go online and it is multi-purpose. Also, even if you don't see books when you are in someone's house how do you know they don't have them upstairs?

Someone who never reads - now that's odd imho, but prefering to keep your books stored away or using an e-reader isn't. I find e-readers really user friendly. I realised I was downloading and reading a lot of books in pdf format on my laptop ages ago, so going digital seemed like a logical progression.

but the thread itself was so snobby, you can hardly complain about reverse snobbery to counter the particular snobbery of the thread.

I've read loads but I give books away. I guess people will think I'm an ignorant buffoon then. Although very few people who'd assume that would be breaking bread with me!

People think liking paper books/having lots of books is snobby, thus when someone posts such they get offended and start harping on about how much better their electronic devices are and how dusty and horrible paper books are. Reverse snobbery. Happens on all these threads, even the obviously jokey ones.

The fact that Zoe thinks this thread is snobby says it all, really.

If people have books upstairs, that's fine. Doesn't make me feel any less weird to be in their living room and not see any books at all. It's just what I'm used to, I suppose.