Wednesday, February 27, 2008

What does your bookshelf say about you?

Here is a fun article from InsideHigherEd.com entitled "Bookshelf and Self" by Scot McLemee. Actually, as is typical in this online journal, the comments in response to the article are as much fun as the article itself.

Happy reading!

P.S. Here's the link to the article that outlines one reader's (geek's) bookshelf etiquette.

2 comments:

julienj said...

I wish I could say that I had the energy to worry about a prime directive for my books, but alas I cannot.

First of all, there's no bookshelf space downstairs, so I don't have the "books on display" issue. CDs, yes. (Though we're thinking about putting them all away, since all our music is on the iPod.)

I've tried to separate reference, ya, children's, and classics, but other than that, our books are kind of a mishmash. (Even with that rubric, though, there are a lot of strays.) Some are read, some not. I will admit that I have some literary theory that I bought because it seemed de rigeur for a PhD classicist to have, but I've barely opened them. I moved them to my office to make me look smart - hopefully my students won't notice that their bindings are wholly untouched.

holdenj said...

It took me a while to get back to read the "Prime Directive" and all, but it was a great find, DJ. And you're right, continuing on to the comments just make it.

As far as displaying books, at least mine are meant to be books! You've seen those design shows, where they just go out and pick up books based on spine color to randomly place among the knick-knacks on bookshelves! Who has room for knick-knacks??