Is this what 99% of mumsnetters homes look like

[Damaged27]

After all these interior design threads this is what I'm imagining everyone on mumsnets homes look like. Just curious if I'm way off because iv never been in a home like this. Maybe if the person is in their 80s. Do people really have bookshelves?

My sitting room.

How would your life be different if you didn't have them?

@Sidehustlequestion I agree on that- mine looks quite similar - it's a big rented house but homely !

I always describe my H as a 'maximalist' - he likes books/vinyl/ zillions of DVDs/guitars etc

These are our other bookshelves. DH s collection of various history books and my cookbooks. Never occurred to me that enjoying reading was somehow snobbish or performative.

It is possible to own out of print academic books, texts in Ancient Greek, chicklit, thrillers, biographies ranging from Nureyev to Mao taking in Peter Cook on the way, Steven King, Agatha Christie, Tolstoy and Jilly Cooper, you know. And that's just looking at the book case next to my mismatched sofa. Eclectism for the win.

I love that cushion, @Tarkan!

Me too!

I think pretty much every room in our house has books in them apart from toilet/bathroom. When DS was little we did have bath books so the bathroom had books in it too! I would love a wall of bookshelves, we have book cases and piles of books dotted around. If we could afford an extension we would have a library/reading room 😀

I have floor to ceiling bookcases in my lounge around a fireplace, the whole wall of a long wall. I’ve always loved reading. The ones on my bookcase are my favourites, I also read a lot on my kindle but I like to buy books I love in hard copy. I have given away loads of less favoured books to charity over time. Upstairs all the children have bookshelves in their rooms for their own books some built in and some freestanding.
in previous smaller houses I always had a bookcases but lucky enough to live in a house with space for huge bookcases now.

I'm just saying to me it looks cluttered and the only people I know who have cluttered houses like this tend to be older as they have accumulated a lot of stuff over the years

Me too.

"Not really a reader". *Oh OP...
*
I've never understood this mindset. Genuinely sad for you on this.

Gently, reading is a gift. For pleasure but more so education.

I read every day, usually around my work subject field, to be as up to speed as possible. Knowledge really is power. I learn stuff, apply it at work, teach the staff, get recognised as a fundamentally important staff member and wages just go up up up.

Your call, but you're just letting yourself down otherwise. I'm on 142k now at 39yrs old and hungry for more. Reading is absolutely key to that success.

I really think a thirst for knowledge and reading needs promoting from a young age and this is where private schooling makes the difference.

Then there's reading for pleasure - I prefer the papers, or articles in my field, or random stuff like how to germinate avocados - it meant we could do it with the kids and now they're growing plants. Reading isn't just books, I actually can't stand novels, but reading... so important....

Most of the reference “books” I need are either online versions or websites now.

Google Maps is more useful to me than an atlas.

Don’t have any art books and can’t think why I would want them.

I do have a couple of books with sentimental value, but that’s it.

Most of my bookshelves actually have sheet music!

But it’s nice to dip in and out of books one has read. I also look at certain titles and it brings back memories of what I was doing/was like at the time I read that particular book.

I have bookcases in every room except the bathroom. Even the kitchen has a little shelf of books. Before I moved house, the guest bedroom was basically a double bed surrounded by shelving full of books.

I got rid of about half my books when I moved, but still have loads as I collect books about a certain historical figure, and I have some that date back to the 1800s. I also collect books on specific subjects and by favourite authors. And then there are my favourite books that I've had for years and keep out of sentimental value and for re-reading.

For general reading I use the library or my kindle. Love my Kindle, it's so easy to highlight and make notes. But the smell of those 19th century books, and the feel of the paper.....

And as others have said, for picture books, the kindle isn't the same. I have some beautiful 'coffee table' books, mainly about historical houses and architecture (although they are on shelves!).

I don't think the vast majority of people posting here are in any way showing off to be honest. The OP has asked whether people really have bookshelves and I think most posters saying yes are simply pointing out that they keep a lot of books ( like in the pictures)

You don't want see my tiny bookshelf.🙈

You're my kind of person! Just don't ask me how many books are on my TBR pile . And that's not counting the ones on the Kindle - damn Daily Deals <>shakes fist at Jeff Bezos>>

Thanks! It was a gift from a lovely friend and it's actually a feather stuffed one so it's kept its shape and comfiness really well over the years I've had it. DH keeps trying to steal it for his man cave and I have to steal it back. Of course we could just buy another one but where's the fun in that?

I think we have full bookshelves in every room, except the bathrooms. I 've been like that since I was very young.

100%

I think it is sad that people see books as clutter

Always had bookshelves growing up but don’t have them in my house. I love reading but generally recycle paperbacks. With the odd exception I generally never read a book more than once so prefer to pass on and swap around so not ever have a couple of books hanging around

Up north. Poor area people don't have studys and libraries in their homes or certainly no one I know. My kids books are just in drawers, piled on a desk, sometimes the floor at somepoint they've probably been on shelves

I was brought up in a small house with no library or a study. (And we actually had an outside toilet.) @Damaged27

My books were on a bookshelf in my bedroom. (My Dad made them.)
My parents' books were on shelves in the living room.

Traditionally, 'poor' people had bookshelves on either side of an open fireplace, (the alcoves) and displayed books there.

Going back to your query if I don't give books away....some, yes, but I have a core of books that I used at university (so they are reference books as well as having some sentimental value), and I sometimes re-read books.

I have a Kindle but actually prefer a hard copy.

I used to have bookshelves, with books on them, and then I took them down to decorate. And never put them back up. I'm never going to re-read books I've already read, and books which haven't been read yet simply aren't going to be.

For some reason, it feels wrong to be giving all my books to charity shops, but they've been sitting in boxes for 2 years so I clearly don't need them.

I do think books are lovely to look at, but not so lovely that I need to put up shelves to look at them.

I do all my reading on kindle now, so my book (novel) collection will never be added to.

I have 3 shelves full of food/cookery books in the kitchen, and plenty of non-fiction on the dresser, but no fiction anywhere.

My parents' house has bookshelves EVERYWHERE. Every time I go there, I just think about the day I'll have to box them all up and take them to charity. They will never re-read any of them. Thankfully, my mum is an avid library user now, so she's not adding to it.