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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

DH thinks I’m being pretentious

346 replies

ramalamadingdong1 · 21/08/2018 23:25

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?

OP posts:

MaisyPops · 26/08/2018 09:58

It might be if there is a deliberate choice to have a bookcase in a public area of the home when the actual normal storage bookcases are elsewhere

Well that's me in camp pretentious.
I have normal book cases in my office, a shelf of books in my bedroom and a book case in my lounge.
I could put another bookshelf up in the spare room, but I don't want a bookshelf in the spare room. I want my furniture and storage to match my rooms.

My bookshelves in the lounge are largely books I've just read, just bought or reference books I'm using e.g. garden planning or how to grow veg.
I'm sure someone will tell me that those book choices are pretentious and only trying to create an image of a certain lifestyle. The reality is in planning what to do with the veg patch next year when I redo the garden.

KERALA1 · 26/08/2018 10:18

We got kindles after an unfortunate incident at easyJet check in frantically binning toiletries and small children as my books had tipped us over the limit. I agree books preferable but if quick voracious reader going away for 2 weeks somewhere sunny and without wifi needs must!

JassyRadlett · 26/08/2018 10:34

I also don't agree kindles win hands down on holidays. Bright sun or floating in a pool or up in the hills with no power or signal - can't beat a real book, they win hands down over kindles in my view.

My Kindle is ace in bright sunlight (e-paper not backlit screen) and goes about a month between charges. No signal needed as all books downloaded in advance. And I will never again be backpacking in rural Montenegro facing having to start David Copperfield again immediately after finishing it because I’d misjudged my reading time and had a day before I’d hit an English language bookshop.

Four bookworms on holiday for a week equals a lot of books (she says, looking out the window at the pouring rain in Dorset). The only place in your list I haven’t read on a Kindle is in the pool, but I wouldn’t trust myself with a book in the water either.

Four bookworms on holiday. The small people of course have books, the large ones have Kindles so we’re not bringing half a dozen books each. Would be ok for a driving holiday (just about) but death to sane packing when flying. And as we often fly to Australia, just packing sufficient books for 36+ hours in transit used to be a killer!

MaisyPops · 26/08/2018 10:54

JassyRadlett
I swapped to a paperwhite for holiday. Best decision ever. Download my books in advance, no glare. Wonderful when I usually travel on hand luggage only.

My original non paperwhite one annoyed me with the glare though.

Gingerivy · 26/08/2018 11:08

I'm baffled as to why it would be pretentious. If you had waved his friend over to the books and rambled on about it, fair enough, that's a bit odd, but he asked a question, you answered it. What's wrong with that? I love seeing books on display in a house - my first instinct is to browse them to see if we've read some of the same titles.

We have a lot of books packed into our tiny flat. Reading has always been important in our house. I home educate my dcs, so it's important to me that we have a variety of books available for them.

My younger ds is dyslexic, so (even though his reading skills have improved greatly this last year) he listens to audio books every evening on Listening Books. (I highly recommend this, by the way! Excellent programme!!)

We all have kindles, but we all prefer actual books, although the kindles are handy for when we're away from home so we don't have to drag a bunch of books with us.

SalemBlackCat · 26/08/2018 11:34

It sounds to me like your husband is jealous about your academic achievements and feels insecure and inferior to you, thus is trying to force you to hide/shut up about your achievements. He really needs to get over himself. He should be proud his wife is smart and has achieved so much. I am sure most other husbands would be proud to show you off as their wife and boast about you.

JacquesHammer · 26/08/2018 12:12

I also don't agree kindles win hands down on holidays. Bright sun or floating in a pool or up in the hills with no power or signal - can't beat a real book, they win hands down over kindles in my view

I used to have to pay excess baggage for enough books to satisfy me for a fortnight away!

MeyMary · 26/08/2018 12:26

YANBU at all. How did your DH even come up with that?

We have quite a few books in our dining/sitting room. Currently have the rest in our 2nd study/storage room (which will probably end up being a children's bedroom or playroom, depends on how many children we'll end up with, I suppose.)

Which would mean that we'd have to store our books elsewhere, probably in a place guests could - gasp! - see them!

Jux · 26/08/2018 13:07

I read both Kindle and books in the bath. I have not dropped a book in the bath since I was a very small child - you learn young to jerk awake when the grip on the book or the position of the arms starts to go! A bit like falling asleep on the train on your daily commute, you automatically wake before your station.

I feel pretty confident about reading in the pool....

The last time we went abroad on holiday we took an extra suitcase of books. That was before any of us had Kindles; I'd just take the Ks now.

Thesearepearls · 26/08/2018 17:03

ROFL at Jux

Holidays used to be a nightmare for luggage what with all the books. it's so much better now with kindles and ipads.

Xenia · 26/08/2018 17:07

The people who get to read so many books on holiday must have the least demanding children in existence. What do you do with them - lock them in the bedrooms all day or do they sit next to you for 5 hours a day reading their own books?

JacquesHammer · 26/08/2018 17:10

Well until 4 years ago I had a husband who did equal amounts of parenting on holiday.

Now she’s older we go away and lounge around together reading.

I don’t need 5 hours to read a book though. I could read 2 in that time and start a 3rd

Thesearepearls · 26/08/2018 17:50

The kids sleep roughly twice as long as I do, plus DH is there doing his bit

Mind you Xenia I do believe that you have 5 children. I only have 2, which perhaps goes some way to explaining why I get a bit more time to myself on holiday :)

TooManyPaws · 26/08/2018 19:07

My complaint is that I have run out of walls to put bookcases against. I have them in each room, including the kitchen and bathroom. Not so many in the sitting room due to everything else claiming space. I'm currently planning on shelving the attic for storage and my shelves of crafts magazines will go up there. Both sides of my family were avid readers, regardless of class; one treasured book is one I found when clearing my aunt's house (I replaced my Heyer paperbacks with her hardbacks!) — a copy of Burns' poems with an inscription from my great-grandmother to my great-grandfather, a coach-painter, given as a present at Hogmanay. When I cleared my parents' house, I found Dad had piled hardback books all around the walls of the downstairs spare bedroom to waist height as he couldn't store them upstairs any more. I inhaled books as a child and gobsmacked the librarian when I asked to be able to choose books from the adult section as I'd read my way through the children's. I resorted to reading my grandfather's Dickens when I was bored at their house, aged around seven. This was normal in both my working-class paternal family and middle-class maternal family, nothing pretentious about it, just people who believed in education and self-education as well as enjoyment.

KERALA1 · 26/08/2018 19:25

I have 2 girls who are avid readers themselves. What with reading on the journey there and back (delayed this year) and reading on the beach I got through I think 7 books. Kindle also means if I start a book and don't enjoy it or not in the mood I have other options without lugging an entire bookshelf with me

Jux · 26/08/2018 20:08

Xenia, one child, very much a reader and a doer of jigsaws, but more than capable of making friends herself. The first time we took her camping - her first holiday - she was 2 and I kept a very close eye on her, but within a day there were children up to 12 or 13 coming to our tent every day to have her come and play. I will never forget her organising everyone, "you carry this, you can bring that, you take the bucket......, now off we go" and leading a line of haggle-taggle gypsies- oh across the field to the play area (in the middle and in sight of all parents'). It was hilarious, all the parents thought so

So generally, yes, plenty of time for dh and I to sit about reading whilst keeping dd within sight.

JassyRadlett · 26/08/2018 20:36

Two parents, two kids, we’re sorted.

Yesterday it was sunny, so we spent the day on the beach/in the town. Fed kids, put them to bed, all read our books after kids were in bed.

Today it pissed down. This morning we did some puzzles and board games, the kids watched a movie and I read while they did that. After lunch, the small one had an unexpected nap, the large one read and so did we. They’re now both asleep, we are deciding between books and film.

InertPotato · 27/08/2018 08:43

I read less when my kids were little. But in general, readers produce readers.

BlaaBlaaBlaa · 27/08/2018 09:10

@xenia when in holiday ( and at home in fact) me and DH take it in turns to give each other a break. I don't get to read as much as I did before kids but we still do okay!

Xenia · 27/08/2018 13:58

I certainly read on holiday but there were often constant interruptions when the children were small never mind that we were off doing things and we never had sleepers for children sadly so that tends to have an impact too.

AviatorShades · 27/08/2018 14:19

books Do Furnish a Room - 10th book in Anthony Powell's Dance to the Music of Time. (my Desert Island pick). All that would be be pretentious there might be the alternative pronunciation of both his names

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