DH thinks I’m being pretentious

[ramalamadingdong1]

This is so ridiculous but DH and I have been having a jokey arguement about this tonight and I think he IBU but I’m prepared to be told different.

I’ve recently bought a shelves for our living room and have started putting book on it. I’m an avid reader and fluentish in another language having studied it at university and lived in the country. I’ve put the English versions of the books I studied on the shelf and love getting them down to read parts of them.

My DH is not a reader and can’t understand this. However, a friend of his was round the other night and commented on the books. I explained I’d studied them at university in their original language and still enjoyed reading them albeit in English.

Tonight my DH laughingly said he thought I sounded pretentious going on about university and keeping these books on display. I only answered a question about them and there were plenty of other books there!

Now I’m wondering if I should just hide my books!

WIBU to display them?

Havent read the whole thread but I had to split up from a former serious boyfriend because he wasn't a reader. Nothing against non readers but I couldn't marry one.

I keep the books that have had an effect on me or I have enjoyed as they have good memories and so I can re read them and so that my dds might grab off the shelf and read. My parents had/have loads of books and as a teen I plowed through the lot. I sat down to my English A level the "unseen" text was an Anita Brookner book my mother had and I had read it a few weeks earlier. I got an A

I read a lot of books over and over again. I will keep most books because there is usually something in the, that I will want to refer to for some reason or other. "Oh, there was something about that in a book I read, let me check, I'm pretty sure that it was by X, oh yes and it had a yellow cover, and oh this one. Somewhere about a third of the way through, on the left near the bottom..... Got it! Oh that's interesting, good to know" etc.

Don’t hide your light under a bushel OP.
Sing about your education if you want, don’t downplay it in order to make your DH feel more comfortable with his educational poverty.

I have a horrible feeling about your marriage. If I was a betting person, I’d say you’ll split unless he gets a grip and celebrates you!

What’s stopping him from studying and getting a degree, if he’s sharp as a tack.
Tb quite h he sounds like a belittling fool, and I think I’d give him his marching orders if he wanted to put me down like that. I wouldn’t tolerate that shit for one minute.

Be proud of who you are and your achievements- you worked hard for them.

I have thousands of books- and have filled my new office with them too. Our plumbers have a good nosey when they come- they’re Polish and well read.

He's an idiot

I'm one of two houses on my close with books in the living room. I had to get shelves made and I.double shelf them.all. I have sci find and fantasy on my geek.shelf, 3 rows of lit fiction and the occasional other book I can't part with. 1 shelf reference/ lit crit. 1 shelf Dhaka. 1 shelf kid's. It's full to bursting. Dh has retaliated with a CD cabinet.

I have cats and books 😅

I have a bookcase with a couple of hundred books in. Some I haven't read yet, my husband doesn't read books. Oh and I also have a few cats. 😉

I’m currently surrounded by 4 full length bookshelves, with another in the room next door and 5 upstairs. And a small shelf of cookery books in the kitchen. Books are amazing and not a statement of pretentiousness.
My dad, however, did build himself a library when he retired

anyone would think you were putting your war medals out on display.lol he sounds daft to me.books go on book shelves

YANBU. Don't change who you are. If part of who you are is a love of books, then go ahead and put them on the bookshelves. I love to see loads of books when I go to other peoples houses and could spend ages 'browsing', I find it interesting. Its nothing to be ashamed of.
Could your DH have been slightly threatened by his friend showing interest in your books?

This isn’t about books is it...

Is his name Fred Waterhouse by any chance?

I'm guilty of hiding trashy books upstairs and only having the classics on my downstairs bookcases. But my bookcases are covered in picture frames so I don't feel they're on display. If anyone commented on them, I would assume they were just people who didn't appreciate books. Sorry your DH is embarrassed, maybe he feels threatened by your intelligence so wants to play it down.

You put trashy and pornographic books on the Kindle and delete them from the device when you're finished (but not from your Amazon account, so you can re-download them if you want to read them again). I thought everyone knew that.

I have pretentiously got two lounges, I'll hand my head in shame, in lounge 1 are bookcases x2 with cookery, plants, animals books as well as interesting books such as those on composting etc
In lounge 2 x4 bookcases I have biographies, novels, classics, knitting, tapestry books etc
In the study I have x3 bookcases of medical books etc
In Dcs room they have 4 bookcases of childrens books, reference etc

We often browse charity shops and brings hauls home -I got 20 Jodi Piccoult books for £15 and enjoyed reading them all. Same with Maeve Binchey etc We have all the Shakespeare plays and readily take a box of books going spare from a friend's house. We do give lots to charity but mostly I've learnt I end up buying them back. Nothing beats a book in this house.
Perhaps I can invite your DH round here -I'm actually shocked when I go to someone's house and they don't have any books.

I was brought up with shelves and shelves of books and all my family have bookcase heaving with books........maybe that makes us pretensions -I think it makes us cheap. Nothing beats a good book.

Having been around to someone's house where they have two huge rooms that would have more appropriately labelled as library rooms with thousands of books -I felt my collection was rather small in comparison.

Sennendream
Some people are borrowers of books while others are buyers of books.
Some do both. I am one who rereads books and rewatches films. So I buy them. I added bookshelves over the years and finally a few years ago bought an e reader because there just was not room for another bookshelf. The only drawback is that I can't lend family and friends the books on the e reader.

A lounge is not at all pretentious. Lounges are to found in hotels or at airports - not in houses.

There is only one response to this (haven't read full thread, so apologies if someone has already suggested it)

When someone accuses you of being pretentious, you reply:

"Pretentious? Moi?"

(Unless of course, you are French . . . )

I love having my bookshelves in the living room filled with books I love. None of my neighbours have books/bookshelves in their sitting rooms; their houses look like show houses, no character. I have two big bookshelves in the sitting room and the study is lined with books. Thank goodness DH felt the same, he would never get rid of a book, and DS and DD are the same, loads of books everywhere in their houses.

Nothing beats a book in this house

Agree - I was given a kindle as a gift, and hate the very electricity it consumed . . . .

" I have pretentiously got two lounges, "

that is not pretentious. If you were pretentious, you would say, perhaps, 'we have a drawing room and a library'....

Opps, sorry, wrong thread .

I've always wondered about houses with lots of books on display, do you actually read them over again or are they just kept because you love them?

Both Sennen. Some I read over and over (Anthony Trollope, Leo Tolstoy, Robertson Davies, Joanne Harris, Emile Zola, various other authors that I like only one/two books by) . Others I keep because I know I probably won't read them again ,but they are too wonderful to part with (Beloved - Toni Morrison). Others are for reference (and I will keep a book for a single phrase or idea).