Maybe but not necessarily. Plenty of people care about the contents of their books and the way they look on their shelves (and get upset when they can’t get all books of a series in the same binding and cover style).
Yes, luckily no one putting anything on the internet has an agenda!
Dang. I guess the 50 volume set of the Collected Works of Marx and Engels in our living room bookcase might be a dealbreaker.
Oh yes. I’m playing a video game called Pentiment which is a fairly accurate historical representation of medieval Europe. Apparently noblemen would commission artists to write fancy script editions of the most popular books despite never intending to read a page.
I’m down to a small paper book collection now, mostly writing and philosophy. But my Kindle, which houses the bulk of my collection, is proudly displayed on my nightstand in its wireless charging dock so I can look at it every day and remind myself, I am a reader, dammit!
One of the things I did after getting settled in my house was have a set of bookcases built in along one wall of the office. I’ve had people ask me during Zoom meetings where I got the bookshelf background I’m using.
I’m now at the penultimate stage of this. I have boxes of books that I’ve read but do nor have shelf space for (we won’t talk about the shelves full of unread books). I keep telling myself that I need to unpack, cull, and dispose of books I know I’m never going to want to read again.
the question is:
do you pay real life money to read somebody’s agenda on the internets?? … and then make space for it in your living quarters??
.
edit to add: … if not, … could it be that a book is just a fetish for some?
I’m culling lots of books these days, as many are the equivalent of a mechanic’s wrenches and sockets: purchased for a particular job or project, or because “you never know when you’re going to need this, and if you don’t have it, when you do need it, you won’t be able buy one.” But new projects need new tools, and some possibilities I can afford to turn down, so it’s out with the imperial wrenches to make room for metric ones.
It’s a good question. But I don’t “surf” books the way I surf the net and so tend to spend real life money on ones I know will be useful or fun. Some I only purchase in e-versions. But I don’t much mind paying for books. They are an amazing bargain, as you’re mostly paying for paper and production: the genius, the inspiration, the fun, the insight are just about free.
Fine, but I don’t see the point of judging someone’s character (I assume that is what @Cervaise is doing) by whether they like to collect books rather than by whether they like to read books. The implication was that a person without books is a person who doesn’t read books, and who is therefore not worth knowing. You will find relatively few books in my house, but I think I’m a wonderfully well-read and literate person. Most of my subtle dry humor no-one else gets, because I read more than they do.
I was in a local Half-Price Books this evening (Sunday). Lots of teens/younger folks, in the book sections as well as perusing games and videos. Also quite a few alternative-looking people of more advanced age.
Amazing, there are still people who enjoy books.
This is absolutely the best way to organize one’s vintage paperback collections.
A couple thousand of my books are vintage paperbacks and they’re almost all sorted this way.
How else can you organize Ace Doubles?
The now sadly-departed New England Mobile Book Fair (which wasn’t even remotely mobile) organized their books by publisher – the only bookstore I ever saw do that. It was pretty annoying, although it was neat having all the Dover paperbacks in one place.
In their later days the started segregating their books by topic, but not long after that they went under.
I stick them in with my science fiction by the name of the author I care about.
Then again, I don’t collect them. They’re frankly annoying in every way. I just bought a few years ago when I was learning about the field.
The Last Bookstore in LA has a “bargain” room with shelves of books sorted by the color of their bindings. Visually interesting but it might be hard to find a specific title.
My personal books are shelved according to whether there was room for it on the shelf when I decided to put it there.
The books I have listed for sale are shelved by author in alphabetical order, shelf by shelf, and the shelves are also labeled as to which platform they’re listed on. Some of the most popular categories, like religion and cooking, also have their own shelves.
A past girlfriend was the crafty type and far fewer books than me, a hundred or so, but she found a supply of glossy paper in various pastels, broke out her paper cutter, and recovered all her books, writing the title and author on the spines in calligraphy. She’d read them all, but wanted a specific effect for the bookcase. Some people take the look of their spaces serious. (I’m accused of that, but I just went “1920s men’s club” and don’t worry past that).
The Boston Public Library, since its last renovation, has a “book mosaic” near the entrance that is made up of colored book covers. But this is clearly decoration – you can’t take these books down and check them out.
When I bought my house my first project was to build a wall of bookshelves in my basement office. It is divided into three sections. The far left section is fiction, the center is (mostly) biographies, and the right is everything else. Fiction is sorted alphabetically by author, biographies alphabetical by subject. The bottom shelf for all three section is for vinyl albums.
I’ve since bought a couple of narrow Ikea shelves to handle overflow. There is a section of presidential biographies, a section of musician biographies, and a section of books on photography.
Oops, one more bookcase next to the piano that contains all my sheet music and songbooks.
mmm