Books in people's homes

[Spot's Meow]

I don't have a *whole* lot of books, maybe two or three dozen. That's not counting Kindle, which is how I get all books now.

I would like a Kindle, but there's just something about holding a book, flipping through it's pages, the scent of the bindings in new books and aged paper in old ones, there's a whole experience there that I would be loathe to give up.

I was worried about this too, but after getting a Kindle for my birthday several months ago I have changed my mind. Although I will never get rid of my real books and still read them, there is also a special feeling related to reading on my Kindle. I never realized how awkward holding a book open can be, especially if you are reading in bed. I feel most comfortable laying on my side, something that doesn't work out too well when reading because you have to reposition the book with each page.

I enjoy the experience of reading with my Kindle because I can nestle into my covers and get cozy. My thumb or hand don't get sore and I am able to get more comfortable, which improves the experience. Plus you get used to associating reading with your cute little Kindle with its nice clean format and pretty letters and you get a good feeling inside when you pick it up.

 

[Kestra]

I also have a lot of books and no place for some of them, anymore. My parents have a big collection, too, and that's after selling/giving away a lot of them already.

I bought an e-book reader a few months ago and I think that's a good alternative to the many paperbacks I own. But scholarly books and books with pictures in them will continue to amass. And I also have a second hand sci fi bookshop I regularly frequent. Ok, I actually need a larger place. I always wanted to have a dedicated library room in my flat.

I was going to write a reply to the original post but then I saw this and figured that the only thing I can add to this thread is:

I like cookies.



Cause every single thing Count Zero wrote applies to me and my life, too.
The only downside to having an ebook reader is that I like actually having my books around me. But I still love my Kindle.

This, as well as what Spot's Meow said about her Kindle. And I also like cookies.

I'm actually in the process of trying to decide what to do with my books right now. I'm moving the furniture at the end of the month and I don't know what I should do with my books. Should they come with? Should they be sold? Should I keep them at my parents' house? I don't think I could bare to part with any of them permanently.

 

[Amaris]

I don't have a *whole* lot of books, maybe two or three dozen. That's not counting Kindle, which is how I get all books now.

I would like a Kindle, but there's just something about holding a book, flipping through it's pages, the scent of the bindings in new books and aged paper in old ones, there's a whole experience there that I would be loathe to give up.

I was worried about this too, but after getting a Kindle for my birthday several months ago I have changed my mind. Although I will never get rid of my real books and still read them, there is also a special feeling related to reading on my Kindle. I never realized how awkward holding a book open can be, especially if you are reading in bed. I feel most comfortable laying on my side, something that doesn't work out too well when reading because you have to reposition the book with each page.

I enjoy the experience of reading with my Kindle because I can nestle into my covers and get cozy. My thumb or hand don't get sore and I am able to get more comfortable, which improves the experience. Plus you get used to associating reading with your cute little Kindle with its nice clean format and pretty letters and you get a good feeling inside when you pick it up.

Ooh. Another good reason to get one. See, I suffer from what I like to call "book chest". It's what happens when I'm in bed reading a book, and my arms are folded under me. When I stand up, you can see two red patches where my elbows have been.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

^ Generic "where your elbows have been" joke goes here.

 

[Sephiroth]

my grandmother hoarded books, her house has wall-to wall overflowing bookshelves in every room, mostly trashy romance novels, it actually put me off reading for the longest time, but I have 3 shelves 2 small shelves, one full of light sci-fi and fantasy novels, the other full of manga, and a larger shelf with every known book of the occult and paranormal written between 1928 and 1984 (including every issue of FATE ever published) that I inherited from my grandmother

 

[Mary Ann]

I grew up in a house with several thousand books and don't remember not knowing how to read. I remember counting the books in my bedroom when I was 7 or 8, and there were 80. My husband's as keen a reader as I am, and last year we donated several hundred of our books because we literally ran out of space for them.

I honestly cannot feel comfortable in a home with no books.

I linked this article to my Facebook page a few days ago:

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23955131-scandal-of-the-homes-with-not-a-single-book-to-read.do

When a teacher asked his pupils to bring in a book from home, one nine-year-old brought the Argos catalogue, saying: 'It's the only one we've got.'...

Seven-year-old Aurella is a picture of concentration. Eyes glued to the television, she manipulates the controls of her Xbox 360, immersed in her favourite Mini Ninjas game.

All around, her room is full of soft toys and games bought by her hardworking mother Anna Brzezowska. But the one item you'd expect to find is absent. There are no books...

At an age when children's literacy takes off, and they are expected to read for 20 minutes a day at home to keep up with classmates, Aurella has nothing to read and nobody at home to read to. It's hardly surprising her ability lagged three years behind that of her peers.

Her plight is alarmingly common. New research, obtained exclusively by the Standard, reveals that one in three children does not have a book of their own at home. By contrast, a separate survey shows 85 per cent of London children own a computer games console.

Researcher Christina Clark surveyed 18,000 pupils in 111 British schools. She found that children with no books had lower levels of attainment, negative attitudes to reading, and read "less frequently". They were two-and-a-half times more likely to fall below the expected reading level for their age. The figures will be released next month by the National Literacy Trust.

The full facts are stark: one in four children leaves the capital's state primaries unable to read properly. Five per cent can hardly read at all. In inner-city schools 40 per cent leave primary school with the reading age of a six to nine-year-old, says the Centre for Policy Studies.

 

[Deckerd]

Without reading any of this, I expect the members of a science fiction messageboard are going to be avid readers and not representative of the general public in this respect.

 

[PurpleLady]

A day doesn't go by that I don't read part of a book. I grew up loving books, but I can't say that I ever saw my parents read though. I don't think I'll ever get one of those electronic books either because I look to hold the book, re-read them and just have them scattered throughout my house.

 

[K'Ehleyr]

I grew up in a house with several thousand books and don't remember not knowing how to read. I remember counting the books in my bedroom when I was 7 or 8, and there were 80. My husband's as keen a reader as I am, and last year we donated several hundred of our books because we literally ran out of space for them.

I honestly cannot feel comfortable in a home with no books.

I linked this article to my Facebook page a few days ago:

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/stand...f-the-homes-with-not-a-single-book-to-read.do

When a teacher asked his pupils to bring in a book from home, one nine-year-old brought the Argos catalogue, saying: 'It's the only one we've got.'...

...

That's where I got it from, thanks macloudt

(sorry messed up the quote bit and need dinner so can't be bothered to re-do, but you get the gist...

A day doesn't go by that I don't read part of a book. I grew up loving books, but I can't say that I ever saw my parents read though. I don't think I'll ever get one of those electronic books either because I look to hold the book, re-read them and just have them scattered throughout my house.

True!

 

[Jadzia]

Do you have a small or large collection of books, or none at all? What about your friends and other family members? Do you know many people who don't have any books?

I have two bookshelves that I keep my books on. Catalogues, dictionary and thesaurus make up one of those shelves. The other supports a varied mixture of text books and periodicals.

I don't really look at my books much since I'm familiar with what's in them. If I bought new ones I know they'd have a similar fate, so I don't bother buying them anymore. They just consume space.

I still have many of the books I had as a child, but they're in a box out of sight. One of my three "sentimentals" boxes. It's nice to look back on them from time to time, but I don't read them.

My father has many hundreds of books, a good number of which have been passed down the family since the 1800s and beyond. They sit in his loft accumulating dust and dead spiders. I will inherit his books one day, and when I do I'll probably end up sticking them in my loft and forgetting about them.

 

[Miss Chicken]

Without reading any of this, I expect the members of a science fiction messageboard are going to be avid readers and not representative of the general public in this respect.

which is why in the OP I also asked them about their family and friends, and whether they knew any people who don't have books.

I know several families that don't have books.

 

[Spot's Meow]

I've been trying to think of people I know who don't have books, but actually most everyone I speak to on a regular basis is very much into reading fiction. The exceptions are my boyfriend's mom and sister. I'm not sure how often they read, but they are definitely the type who buy bookshelves to display useless candles and bowls and glass things on instead of actual books. The main bookshelf in our living room is packed with books, and I saw his mom wincing at it when she first walked in. I guess there weren't enough meaningless decorative items surrounded by a foot of open space for her liking.

 

[Snaploud]

My family had tons of sci-fi books laying around while I grew up. It's not surprising that I become a big sci-fi reader.

It's still weird for me when I come across people who don't enjoy reading. I actually have a couple cousins who fall into that category. It's like they're aliens or something...except I would probably have more in common with an alien.

 

[Captain_Nick]

It is bizarre isn't it? If you don't keep books in your house, what do you read when you are bored??

 

[Snaploud]

I wish I could afford a Kindle, mainly because my eyes are getting bad and I was told the Kindle will read to you. I am technologically crippled, though, and I don't know how hard it would be to figure out how to get books I want on the Kindle. Also, if I end up in a hospital, a Kindle would be a lifesaver for me.

I can't stop reading.

Just a heads-up:

Baen Books (www.baen.com), a publisher of science fiction, will provide its books to fans who are blind, paralysed, or dyslexic, or are amputees, in electronic form free of charge, effective immediately.

http://www.webscription.net/t-disabled.aspx

 

[Admiral_Young]

I grew up in a home filled with books. My parents place has an entire staircase shelf (that I helped build with my mom) filled with books. There is a tall shelf down in the living room, two wall mounted shelves above the piano in the living room, my brother has a shelf of both his books and our old books we had as kids. My mom has a personal shelf next to her bed, and in my parents office there is another shelf filled with books. I honestly have no idea how many books are in the house. That's also not counting boxes filled with books there is no room for.

In my current place, I have a desk shelf filled with graphic novels and books. I've two boxes filled with books that I've no room for either.

 

[Snaploud]

I think books are as much of a necessity as food and shelter.

 

[MLJames]

I have six bookcases of varying sizes in my living room, all full (the largest one stacked double on all the shelves), plus a couple of boxes in my closet full of books I don't have shelf space for. My parents and siblings filled multiple bookcases in their homes as well, and it's been that way in my family as long as I can remember.

About seven or eight years ago I used to work with a guy who only read gaming magazines. He said he couldn't understand why anyone would read a book for pleasure, and he was pretty arrogant about it. Since most of the crew consisted of diehard book readers, he wasn't exactly the most popular person on the shift. (Didn't help matters that he was an inveterate practical joker, either; most of us wanted to kill him at one time or another.)

 

[captcalhoun]

i've literally got too many books for my room.

i have one shelf around 6' long which is Trek novels end to end. the next shelf down is some Trek, a handful of others and then Dale Brown novels. i've taken over shelves in the bedroom my sisters used to use and have a ~7' shelf of Star Wars and Tom Clancy novels. another is 4' to 5' filled with Discworld and Harry Potter and another is about 4' filled with tradepaperback and hard cover collections of comics. i've got boxes of books in the loft that's stuff i didn't read much.

my sister who lives in Oxford has more of a problem, she's got loads of books and lives in a bedsit. nearly all her books are boxed up.

life without books would be worse than life without a PC!

 

[Naira]

We've never had tons of books around (I'd say under 100) but we read a lot. I mostly used to borrow books from the library so I have no idea how many I've read that way but they were a lot.

Unfortunately, I don't have much time for reading non-university books these years, so my collections grows very slowly, but still, I can't imagine not having any books in the house.