Ignoramus watch: Designers really want you to decorate your room by shelving your books backwards

boing
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This is sort of the extension of interior designers who call used bookstores to order books by the yard, in specific color schemes, to fill shelves in a room and look aesthetically pleasing. A large bookstore down the street from me used to offer this service (usually filling the space with old textbooks or city surveys, the kind of thing very few people would read or use but looks appropriately studious).

My dad’s a retired teacher, and a few days ago told me that about 30% of kids entering public schools in Ohio have to be shown how to hold a book, because they have no idea what they are or how to use them.

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Why on earth should I care about how people I shall never meet arrange their stuff in the inside of their homes?

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Well, you clicked, read the article, and commented, so…?

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When I had a library I explicitly organized, rather than just keeping related books together, I put them in chronological order, star wars books first, of course. It worked out nicely but it was hard to scale.

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Decorbooks: “Antique and vintage books, supplied by the metre for instant libraries and interior decoration”

Books By The Foot: Available by color, theme, and binding style (my favorite is “Vintage Justice”)

Books by the foot from the Strand: available for sale or rental, which I imagine would be useful for realty/home staging, or maybe also theatre productions?

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It exists.

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how would you know? Some readers take good care of their books and don’t fox the pages, highlight them, or write in the margins.

“See!” he cried triumphantly. “It’s a bona-fide piece of printed matter. It fooled me. This fella’s a regular Belasco. It’s a triumph. What thoroughness! What realism! Knew when to stop, too – didn’t cut the pages. But what do you want? What do you expect?”

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He did take good care indeed and so did he teach me to do. Nevertheless, I can still easily tell if a book has been read at all because the original stiffness is gone once you read it, no matter how cautious you were. Also, many older books were not cut. Last, not least, you’d rather see him behind a newspaper or in front of the TV so either he did a good deal of reading in secret or he didn’t read most of those books.

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I’m pretty sure this is a Goofus and Gallant type of thing.

"Lisa shelves her books with the titles facing inwards.

Janice proudly displays the books she is interested in, and fuck you if you are offended by the clash of colors."

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Yikes. I move often, so I don’t keep many extra things. I just use the library a great deal. I wonder if this is why I haven’t had a date in a while?

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You really are missing the irony aren’t you? I point it out directly.
Please carry on judging people for judging people. priceless. :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

The whole point of this thread is to discuss our opinions about this, why are you here?

:slight_smile: :+1:

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I think at this day and age i would expect to see less books but i wouldn’t necessarily expect people to read less. I do prefer reading my books in physical format but there’s a good number of people that are comfortable reading them on a screen or as an audiobook. As such if i found out through casual conversation that a date does not like reading i would judge them hard, vs someone that doesn’t have a lot of books at home.

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Oh, yeah. I agree. That and being pro-Trump.

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I think low literacy and being a terrible person often go (tiny) hand in (tiny) hand

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Obligatory;

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I’m not judgemental at all

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I do! Thanks!

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It’s a method of carbon sequestration. Keep buying books just to store them.

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Just brought 4 full bags (large, heavy duty plastic shopping bags) of books to the nearest branch of the Austin Public Library system. This is a donation to their ongoing book sales / fundraising.

I too am trying to cull, and be brave, and even check eBay to see if my original copies of Mondo 2000 (Numbers 4, 5 and 6) etc. are worth the hassle of trying to sell them. The culling and the dusting continue even now, though we started this project over the holiday break in December. Open shelving=dust. Even with an expensive HVAC filter and plenty of vacuuming with a Miele. All first world problems, to be sure.

I found out last year that Austin’s public libraries don’t get to keep income from some stuff like overdue fines (those go to the city’s general fund) etc. These libraries are allowed to keep proceeds from their used book sales. I rationalized that at least I am taking my culled books to a place where there are lot of other books and people who visit that place actually do read books. Plus, one look at APL’s older branches (mine) and it’s plain they seriously could use the extra funding.

You might want to check in with whatever libraries are near you, and see if your culls could enjoy one more life before the pulper, the recycle bin, the compost pile, or… [shudder] the landfill–I am with Terry Pratchett on this one (cf. Going Postal). Permaculture teacher Geoff Lawton has a use for truly awful books that no one will ever read again:


and yeah I sense most folks on this bbs are not likely to have a lot of lame books in their collections. (I find myself a gardener in a stony place with poor soil depth, so I do kinda see Lawton’s point. Some glues and inks are still a bad idea to pitch into a compost pile meant to grow food though.)

As long as I find myself in certain waiting rooms, I bring in some of shorter books with full color pictures and leave them, having gotten the ok from the business owner. I am trying to get children to feel comfortable opening a book, looking at pictures that don’t move, make sounds, or interact with them. A Day in the Life of China was a good fit for the kungfu studio yesterday. National Geographic magazines are nice in the dentist/doctor/acupuncture offices because their photography is always so well done. It’s such a relief to find a magazine that is not about sports, hunting, cars or celebrities.

I still have too many books. I am not interested in digital versions of most of them in any case. (I am trying to shed belongings at this point, and anything requiring batteries/power to work will have to wait.)

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