# What does your bookcase say about you?



## Perseus (Mar 7, 2009)

What does your bookcase say about you?

BBC NEWS | UK | Magazine | What does your bookcase say about you?


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## Perseus (Mar 7, 2009)

Superficially, my bookcase would say

MESSY & UNTIDY (some would say MAD, I barred him)

DISORGANISED TO AN IMPRACTICAL DEGREE (Just a lack of space, guv)

Most people would not get past this, but it has been descrribed as

VERY INTERESTING

Also

A DISGRACE TO THE HUMAN RACE


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## Jennywocky (Aug 7, 2009)

Mine would say:



eclectic and curious as hell
deep/intellectually hardcore
imaginative and creative
goofy/whimsical
go with the flow
marginally organized but mostly haphazard


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## Sily (Oct 24, 2008)

Years and years
Unorganized
Too many
Going to break
Metaphysical
You like to cook
Read ME before you die!
You will never read all these before you die.
You could have bought a house with all the money you spent here on this shelf.
Bending from weight.
This doesn't belong here!


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## WordNerd (Sep 23, 2009)

Well the first thing that my bookcase says about me is "Why won't this lazy bitch buy another bookcase?!" I have books crammed in any way I can get them to fit, and stacked dangerously high on top. If you walk too hard near it they start to slide off :blushed: Plus my poor house is littered with books that have no proper place...on _and_ under the coffee table, kitchen table, night stand, bathroom counter, and my desk. Ugh....

Other than that it says:

1. I am a child at heart.
2. I am obsessed with the supernatural.
3. I love art.
4. I love writing and reading about....writing.
5. I have a silly soul 
6. I enjoy learning about history.
7. I refuse to live in reality.
8. I collect ditionaries and other reference books.
9. My books LIVE with me....they are tattered from being tossed into purses and backpacks, they have food stains on the pages from enjoying a meal with me, and they are LOVED!


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## PeacePassion (Jun 9, 2009)

right now mine would say:

1. get some shelves for the closet and unpack already!


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## Windette (Jun 29, 2009)

Haha, this is interesting. XD

Mine says:
- obsessed with biology, zoology and the environment
- I prefer innovation of reality rather than complete fantasy
- obsessed with horses
- gamer
- adventurous and 'outdoorsy'
- possibly naive
- Christian evolutionist


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## vanWinchester (May 29, 2009)

Well, mine says 
~ not afraid of the unknown or uncommon
~ hungry for knowledge of all sorts; especially why things are like they are
~ very important to me, because always close
~ highly appreciated and respected because maintained very excellently
~ very complex and wide variety
~ a real treasure to whom I am very loyal
~ kept very safe

Hm. Is it just me or does "how you keep your bookcase" also relate to "how you treat your friends"? Odd.


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## Perseus (Mar 7, 2009)

My subjects are:

Marine biology, ecology, oceanography
British wildlife and ecology, ID books
Local history, British history to 1066
Anthropology
Football (soccer)
Psychology of personality types
Computer program use
Dictionaries and encylopaedias, atlases
British railways
Geology
Native Americans
Miscellanaeous collection of fiction and anything else that just took my fancy e.g. model-making, meteorology, sociology, photography, English language, world history, archaeology, politics, mythology, D-I-Y. 

The disorganisation which was OK for years and years is now completely out of hand. e.g. I can't find an overdue library book.


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## Kevinaswell (May 6, 2009)

Book case?

Pfft, book cases.

All my literature is strewn randomly in random boxes stored randomly throughout our apartment. One is over there on the floor.

It's got shit like Holes....Biopsychology....some Wacco shit.....harry potter....house of leaves...fantasies....misc. psych texts.......errrrr............iunno.


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## Naydra (Apr 4, 2009)

It would say: organized, neat, serious, eclectic, academic, theoretical, and appreciative of the arts.

My main subject areas: philosophy, political science, anthropology (biological and archaeology), biology, zoology, literature (anthologies, poetry, classics), history, art (criticism, sequential).


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## Mikbert (Jul 19, 2009)

Mine would say....



.... Doesn't read much.


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## skycloud86 (Jul 15, 2009)

My bookcase - 

* Unorganised
* Eclectic
* Politically progressive
* Enjoys a wide range of film and television (my DVDs)
* Curious
* Intellectual
* Prefers non-fiction


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## HollyGolightly (Aug 8, 2009)

Weird
Bad taste
Into fantasy far too much


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## Arion (Apr 8, 2009)

Drived in what I do
(At least when I read fiction which I seldom do) Don't like to stay in touch with reality
Information is crucial
Romance is repulsive
My bookshelf isn't very imaginative (nonfiction)


All for irony, sarcasm and Edgar Allan Poe (Huzzah)
World War II freak

What the genres are specifically:
Encyclopedias
Biology, Physics and Astronomy
German books
Biography
Fantasy and SciFi
War history
More war history
and more war history
and then some...


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## faeriegal713 (Sep 29, 2009)

Let's see mine would say:



Unorganized - why do I have febreeze up there?
In serious danger of having a book or _something_ fall on my head or foot.
Living in fantasy
Disorganized and cluttered - oh wait, did I say that already?
Newly discovered comic-book trades - still living in fantasy
New Age frou-frou nut
Buddhist or has a very odd fascination with the Lotus Sutra and interpreting it.
Avoids the "classics" like they contain the plague
But enjoys writing
 The actual genres are:


Fantasy/sci-fi (both adult and ya)
Personality typing things
Philosophy
Manga
Comic book trades
Buddhist study materials (I really ought to start pulling those off the shelf again)
Several reference books to include dictionaries
An occasional non-fiction book looking lost and confused
New age self-help/astrology/poke fun at new age type books
Sadly, this does not reflect my current collection of books as 2/3 are packed away in several boxes in a completely different state. When I get to go back home and unpack, and introduce all my old books to my new books, I'm sure I'll have to acquire at least one very tall or two moderate book cases to find them all homes. Shucks... :wink:


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## Closet Extrovert (Mar 11, 2009)

Um, let's see:

There is:

-Calligraphy
-Story files
-Magazines
-And lastly...story books...of all sorts! 

Oh, and lots of papers and sh*t as well...gotta sort through it...but I never do! Typical P...


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## faeriegal713 (Sep 29, 2009)

Closet Extrovert said:


> Oh, and lots of papers and sh*t as well...gotta sort through it...but I never do! Typical P...


I'm stuck right there with you. The only time those papers or random stuff is ever moved is when I am packing up to move. One would think with how often I've moved recently I would have figured it out, but nope, still here, still tossing more stuff on the pile to go through later. When later comes around, which is more like never...


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## Aßbiscuits (Oct 8, 2009)

I read a lot, I keep a lot of old books from my childhood. I love fantasy novels. I have lots of perfume bottles and deodrants etc on one of the shelfs as well, so I smell good xD. I have awards I used to get in music, so musical. i


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## Aßbiscuits (Oct 8, 2009)

I read a lot, I keep a lot of old books from my childhood. I love fantasy novels. I have lots of perfume bottles and deodrants etc on one of the shelfs as well, so I smell good xD. I have awards I used to get in music, so musical. I have a whole two seperate shelf for my games and collective items so I'm a nerd xD. I like Shakespeare (my mother got me the whole set xD). I like to keep all the gifts my friends get me (since they always get me little ornaments) so I value my friendships? I have cuddly toys, so childish. 
It's very neat as well.

I am a nerd, I'm not musical anymore, I do read a lot, I do value my frienships, I'm not neat so...Not sure if I smell good and I'm certainly childish so it's mostly right xD.

:happy:


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## Medora (Jun 17, 2009)

My bookcase would reveal that I've an overwhelming preference for history books, that my second most read subject is religion, and that I organize books only from tallest to shortest. That said, though, there is also the less obvious. The bookcases that surround the walls of my room, and that are filled with all of the books I've read, help relax me; together with the dim brown light of a covered lamp, and the pleasing sounds of my favorite old school R&B or Jazz—or yes, even Metal—make for what I'll call the "ideal environment"—my room, my sanctuary. However, as much as the bookcases and books are there to look good, they are also there for utility. 

Sioban Toman, in the article linked to in the opening post, asks, "Surely books should be temporary, disposable items?" Even earlier, the author asks "...how often do you really re-read the old classics?", obviously making the same implication of the first sentence: that the worth of the book is greatly diminished after the first reading (or few). 

To this, I say, They are certainly not of necessity, but their subjective worth to me is nonetheless significant, as I love being able to pull my familiar and thoroughly dissected books off the shelves close behind and beside me, and to use them to supplement posts and essay that occupy my attention, or to go back to passages that caught my attention in the hopes that they will lend me inspiration or give me ideas. For example, one of my assignments for English 015 was to write about health care in America. I gathered plenty of sources easily enough online, but I also had the benefit of several books on my shelves with relevant content of — as it turned out — much use. To name just one, there was this book I read every page of for Politics 100: Morris Fiorina's _America's New Democracy_. Part of the way I chose to formulate my essay was to briefly theorize on the unpopularity of socialism in modern America, and the effect that may have on health care reform; Fiorina's book alone gave me a decent insight on the subject with its statistics on Americans' feelings about government involvement as compared to those of other first-world countries. I re-used this reference in a recent post I made at another forum in the topic "America and Socialism." 

I also had the advantage of my library to make informed examples and questions in another topic in another forum, this one titled "Most interesting historical 'what ifs'? In fact, it is the food for thought in those books that inspired me to post the topic in the first place. Yet other examples include debate topics I have started about religion; with Christian apologist C.S. Lewis' _The Complete C.S. Lewis Signature Classics_ close at hand, I was able to quickly revisit whole passages of interest to refine my commentary.

Certainly, we have our Google Books and unlimited websites with attributed quotations, as well as our public libraries, but that is beside the point, which is that the stacks of books you have gone through serve as immediate sources of inspiration and citation, and if they may not serve as useful a service, they can very well be a decent supplemental. (If you are a bookworm, it is worth having the "decent supplemental.") You have in your library your own dissected body of knowledge to pull up at moment's notice. Just as a law professor pulls up his dusty references to help him in a case, or a Christian apologist pulls up his favorite Christian classic or apology to cite an apt example, so too can a mere amateur make apt use of his haphazard library to enrich himself long after he has read a book. A book does not lose its value immediately after it's read if it is a good one because there is plenty of wisdom that may warrant revisiting again and again for any multitude of occasions or reasons. Along these lines, there are some people who write extensive notes on their books for when they come back to it later. As much book resources as there is online, it doesn't have the same feel as an extensive library of books you have already dissected at your fingertips.

I was clearly assuming a non-fiction dominated library. Also, I mean only to speak for myself.


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## Harley (Jul 5, 2009)

My _magazine_case (yea I know, shitty joke) says I like to read texts with lots of glossy, shiny pictures.
And that I also like to read series.


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## Deagalman (Jul 3, 2009)

I'm a scattered wreck of half finished readings, never read books, hoarded information.


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## idiocyncratic (Nov 24, 2009)

i've just rediscovered that i do have a bookcase thanks to this thread. Too many books thrown/stuffed/piled up all over it till i can't see my bookcase anymore. :/

Oh and i think 30% of them are long long overdue library books. oops. - i don't even want to start to analyse what my bookcase would say about me.


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## knght990 (Jul 28, 2009)

My bookcase shows im too broke to afford a nicer bookcase or any bookends.


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## Aerorobyn (Nov 11, 2009)

My bookcase is my car trunk, and it carries my school books. I guess that says I don't read enough.


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## Geodude (Nov 22, 2009)

Hmmmm

- I guess it would say my taste runs from the very silly and frivolous, to the very intellectual and serious.
- Given the vast numbers of text books that there are one or more university educated people in the house.
- That there is a comic book geek in the house
- For a comic book geek house there are very few superhero comics
- Holy Crap those big comics are porn (anyone else read Alan Moore's Lost Girls?)
- There are fans of Iain M Banks, Peter F Hamilton, Philip K Dick, Neil Gaiman, Neal Stephenson, JK Rowling, Dean Koontz and Janet Evanovich.
- Someone likes Plato and Aristotle.
- The occupants of the house are committed readers; for a two person house there are a lot of books.


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## Moon Pix (Sep 19, 2009)

1. Music fan
2. Interested in real people (one of my favourite books is a biography of Malcolm X - supposedly written by the man himself but apparently it was ghostwritten by Alex Harvey)
3. Generally enjoys fiction that is emotionally moving rather than experimental (think Haruki Murakami rather than James Joyce)
4. Believes William Burroughs to be a genius. Ive never come across another writer who could make me feel as genuinely uncomfortable one minute and make me almost piss myself from laughing so hard the next as William Seward Burroughs.
5. Enjoys poetry but only as long as I can understand it enough to be moved by it (WB Yeats owns Ezra Pound and the rest of those overly intellectual, incomprehensible "forgot to turn your heart on when you sat down to write" modernist bitches!)
6. Is interested in psychology and sociology (oohh an -ology, you are clever)
7. Albert Camus all the way!
8. George Orwell all the way!
9. Has a good attention span (try reading _The Glass Bead Game_ without one)
10. Has got to the point where he's so bored with the whole us vs them pissing match that he doesnt even really like the anti-establishment people anymore (would rather read _The Rebel Sell_ than _No Logo_)


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## Narrator (Oct 11, 2009)

Gay sex=good, so good it's become a curved bookcase
Anthropomorphic, somewhat macabre kids books=good
Russian folk tales=<3
A tad surreal with Kafka on the shore <3 and A.M Homes <3
Kids persecuted and on a mission
Mills and boon, aka time to get funky with the scalpel, = pretty art pieces
And just a little trash and a little Troy


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## isthatheidi (Nov 21, 2009)

Which bookcase? Actually, they all say bibliophile. And, probably, "STOP BUYING DICTIONARIES!"


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## Pac-Man (Nov 21, 2009)

My collection of 500+ books would say this person:

Loves Theories of Mathematics, Physics, and Cosmology.
Loves Paranormal Speculations.
Loves Sci-Fi and Speculative Fiction.
Loves Mythology & Classical Legends.
Loves Renaissance Philosophy. 
Loves Dynamical Systems.
Loves Manga.


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## Alchemical Romance (Nov 26, 2009)

My book case says: Put those damn things where you took them from, it makes me feel useless.


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