LOL, I had the same experience house-sitting for a coworker many years ago. No books or magazine or newspapers anywhere in the house. And even his small videotape collection was the most bland and generic stuff imaginable – only mainstream Hollywood junk like Pretty Woman. It really creeped me out.
My in-laws have no books in their house. There might be a Bible, and maybe a car-repair manual and one or two cookbooks, but other than that, no books at all. There aren’t even any magazines or newspapers.
That’s my Aunt Helen’s house!
She calls books/mags/papers “dustcatchers” and won’t tolerate them in the house. In fact, my uncle had to learn to grab his paper and not set it down until he was finished – the times he was interrupted, like to answer the phone, he’d come back and she’d have already taken the paper out to the garage to get it out of her house. <<shudder>>
Now, me, I have seven bookcases.
In our bedroom.
Okay, one of them is for dvds. But then there’s five more bookcases in the living room, two in kitchen, three in the ‘spare’ bedroom. Also the ones we improvised in the basement stairwells… Has anyone else done that? Break through the wallboard to open up the wall space, add 2X4 shelves between the studs, and put some sort of ornamental framing around the entire opening? If you do the entire staircase wall you get roughly 12’ by 8’ tall of bookcases, and the depth is just fine for ordinary paperbacks.
You’ve just described one of our living room walls.
Dammit, I’m so jealous. I had to give away all of my books when I left last year for Texas. Now I’m catching up financially and otherwise and only live in a little studio apt. So far only 20 or so books in the 5 months since I’ve been back.
Anyone got any good ideas for space saving shelving in a small room?
I often carry a Bible with me if I’m out running around- my main form of transportation is the bus, and having something to read when you’re waiting for a bus/on a long bus ride is a good thing, and even better if it’s the Good Book.
Reading the Bible on a bus is an extremely hazardous activity. You tend to attract some of the stranger Fund’ist types who, apparently, never got Luther’s memo that a person can and should be allowed to read the Bible for him/herself.
So, I become a magnet for the Word Faith guy who wants to expound on how by applying the principles in God’s Word, I can become fabulously wealthy, the KJVonly guy who informs me that the King James Version is the only Truly Inspired edition, and reading a modern English translation will cause my soul to be sucked through the pages directly into Hell, and on and on…
What really frosts my ovaries is, after I’ve mumbled my polite replies and tried to go back to my reading, they can’t seem to grok that I would like to read the Bible for myself, and am not in the mood for exegesis, they continue to expound, I mumble politely again and lower my head toward the open Book, then, after continued interruptions, finally turn my shoulder to them and face the window, they get all huffy and make sulky comments like, “Oh, you don’t want to talk to me” or somesuch.
Well, actually, no, I don’t want to talk to you. I have found through painful experience that trying to engage in meaningful dialog with some of my farther-out bretheren is unproductive at best, counterproductive at worst, and in any case if I wanted to engage in conversation, I wouldn’t have my nose stuck in a Bible.
It’s risky, but you could fix them with an odd stare and say, “I read the book to know my enemy.” Then stare at them silently until they go away.
I know they’re not the enemy. But it’ll get them off your back.
Read it to them. In your choice of A: absolutely flat, uninflected monotone, or B: a deep, snarly voice. Or over the intercom.
My* mother’s * house! I have never been 100% sure that I was not adopted. 
Well, my parent’s house isn’t completely devoid of books, but neither are there very many. I recall having a small bookcase in my room with hand-me-downs, a few used books from Goodwill, etc. when I was a kid. We also had a set of encyclopedias, a bunch of Reader’s Digest Condensed Books, a set of hardcover “children’s books” (Alice in Wonderland, Robin Hood, Black Beauty, etc.). All semi-commercialized, “standard” books, nothing that said much about the person who might read them. I was a prodigy (early reader, skipped a grade) and yet I recall no parent-sponsored trips to the library, and we Did Not BUY Books at a bookstore. I did not discover the joy of bookstores until I met Mr. S, who was a frequenter of them. Now that we kids are out of the house, you might find a few paperbacks around the place, but that’s it. Oh, and kiddie books for the grandkids.
My mother’s family are not pleasure readers; in fact, they seem to revel in their ignorance. However, my father’s side is the opposite. I used to love going out to “the cabin” on my grandparents’ land, with its little bed and woodstove and wall-to-wall, floor-to-ceiling, overflowing bookshelves. When I was told that my aunts and uncles used to take encyclopedia volumes to bed with them, I knew I wasn’t adopted because I used to do the very same thing.
I too, am a Constant Reader.
Six years ago I moved from a very large city (6 million) to a very small town (1024). I go out for lunch nearly every day and this town only has five restaurants (four in the winter), so I was subjected to the litany of interruptions mentioned in this thread. As time has passed I have become somewhat of a fixture - ‘Oh, Alonzo? He’s a bit cracked. Best let him be.’
The interruptions never really bothered me as they gave me an opportunity to get to know my new neighbors. Every now and then someone will still talk to me when I’m reading. When they do, I put down the book and have a word or two with them. Hey, I’ve got to play poker with these folks.
By the way, I’ve gotten some great book/author leads from SDMB, including Neal Stephenson. I’m on my way now to Amazon to check out Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrel. Thanks!