What Does Your Bookshelf Say About You?

Why is it that we store books in such a public fashion? Of course, we don't line up a row of shelves on our front lawn to show off that copy of The Riverside Shakespeare, but our bookshelves do seem to convey something to anyone who enters our home. Plenty of bibliophiles I know tend to showcase the books they're "proudest" of in the living room, and the others with less prestige (though still enjoyed) are housed on a separate, more private shelf.

I do the same thing at my house. I'll display even my most treasured genre books above those that I'm not necessarily as proud to own. Why is that? What is it about a book collection that lends itself to such public display? Why not store them?

It's an intriguing question to ask, and an article on the BBC site delves headlong into the phenomenon:

And yet, more than 500 years after the invention of the printing press, the importance and value of keeping books is showing no sign of waning. The internet was supposed to spell the end of the printed word - instead one of its earliest success stories was an online book shop, Amazon.

It's hard to escape the theory that there is an exhibitionist side to our bookcase obsession - it's about showing off how much you have read, or plan to read, or pretend to have read. You are subtly suggesting that you are the sort of person who keeps Finnegans Wake handy, for example, just in case you ever fancy dipping in for a quick, albeit incomprehensible, catch-up.

I am somewhat of a book exhibitionist, with not one, but six, fully stocked bookshelves in my living room alone. I would rather have them out in plain sight than in a box somewhere collecting dust. Part of it is that I see little value in storing what I do not use on a consistent basis, but also because I am, indeed, proud of my little collection of bound adventures. Somehow, I feel as though they are, like pictures from a vacation, proof of my enduring adventures, evidence of where I have been and who I am because of the books I have read. It may be a little off, but what isn't?

Billy Bookcases on IKEA.com
[IMG Source=Stewart Butterfield]

Neil Gaiman's Bookshelves

I am, without a doubt, a bibliophile. For the last few months, I thought maybe I should get rid of some of my books to make room in the somewhat smaller apartment LP and I moved into. That is, until I saw the Neil Gaiman post on Shelfari. Gaiman's book collection well more than eclipses my own, and most of his books are probably actually pretty good. Now I kind of want to go out and buy more books to try and catch up with him! If I can't be a famous author, at least I can own books like one!

Naturally we’d assumed that someone whose work is filled with references ranging from literary to mythological would have a fairly extensive library but even so, we were a bit unprepared for the scope of what he sent us. In the basement of his house of secrets we find a room that’s wall-to-wall and floor-to-ceiling with books (along with a scattering of awards, gargoyles and felines). The photo above hints at what’s there, but here are a few close-ups:

Source: Shelfari

If you're so inclined, you can take a look at Gaiman's Shelfari bookshelf. It's a pretty interesting collection.

Previous related articles:

• Internet Mogul Sam Walker's Library