<![CDATA[What Does Your Bookshelf Say About You, Wannabe? - Gawker Comments]]> <![CDATA[What Does Your Bookshelf Say About You, Wannabe? - Gawker Comments]]> <![CDATA[What Does Your Bookshelf Say About You, Wannabe?]]> When my shrink asks me personal questions, I stare at her bookshelves. Then I wonder whom she busts the book Genius out for, and feel inferior she's never offered me anything more than Object Relations Theory.

lawyerlez

]]> <![CDATA[What Does Your Bookshelf Say About You, Wannabe?]]> Bernard Black would have a field day with these types, were he not a fictional character.
From Black Books, Series 1, Episode 1:

CUSTOMER: Those books, how much?

BERNARD: Hmm?

CUSTOMER: Those books. Leather-bound ones.

BERNARD: Yes, Dickens. The collected works of Charles Dickens.

CUSTOMER: They're real leather?

BERNARD: They're real Dickens.

CUSTOMER: I have to know if they're real leather because they have to go with a sofa. Everything else in my house is real. I'll give you two hundred for them.

BERNARD: Two hundred what?

CUSTOMER: Two hundred pounds...

BERNARD: Are they leather-bound pounds?

CUSTOMER: No...

BERNARD: Sorry, I need leather-bound pounds to go with my wallet. Next!

droplet

]]> <![CDATA[What Does Your Bookshelf Say About You, Wannabe?]]> @ahotdoughnut: I have a VC Andrews book on my shelf. And an audiobook of 'Petals on the Wind.' I win!

adminslave

]]> <![CDATA[What Does Your Bookshelf Say About You, Wannabe?]]> Wow...I have a copy of seventies YA book "Strawberry Summer" on my bookshelf. What does that say about the kind of person I'd like to be?

ahotdoughnut

]]> <![CDATA[What Does Your Bookshelf Say About You, Wannabe?]]> @BettyCrocker:

Gaywick? But of course! Vadriel Vail has one of those excruciating covers that makes my poor lad flinch!

I've recently been "turned on" [ahem.] by friends to the "Raised By Wolves" series by W.A. Hoffman. It's pirates rather than Gothic/Regency stuff, but hey-- sodomy on the high seas? Who can resist?! They're actually surprisingly well-researched and well-written to boot.

snappaloosa

]]> <![CDATA[What Does Your Bookshelf Say About You, Wannabe?]]> I reread all books that I didn't hate, sometimes over and over again.

I asked someone what my bookshelf said about me, and they said "probably that you're one of those rare female serial killers who uses violence and not poison or smothering".

rokenrolzombie

]]> <![CDATA[What Does Your Bookshelf Say About You, Wannabe?]]> @Lonesome_George: When I finish a book I really like, I generally flip back to the part I most enjoyed and reread it, right then. I am still rereading books from my teens. I just don't buy books anymore, as I move so often that they have become a liability.

adminslave

]]> <![CDATA[What Does Your Bookshelf Say About You, Wannabe?]]> I used to read "Lost Horizon" once a year. Since Bozo became Planetarchos I've read it about every six months.

trojanhorse

]]> <![CDATA[What Does Your Bookshelf Say About You, Wannabe?]]> @Claystil: Lol. I reread some books into the 20's. I always catch some nuance I missed the first time.

Tenno

]]> <![CDATA[What Does Your Bookshelf Say About You, Wannabe?]]> @Lonesome_George:

I really only re-read a book if I loved it or if it profoundly affects me in some way (or if it is the book Youth In Revolt).

Otherwise, I figure it does more good to send it off into the world so someone else can read it rather than gather dust in my apartment. That said, I probably have around 700+ books in my apartment.

BTW, I just read that Michael Cera is playing Quentin Twisp in the film of Youth in Revolt.

smitty

]]> <![CDATA[What Does Your Bookshelf Say About You, Wannabe?]]> @Lonesome_George:

You're in good company:

"Curiously enough, one cannot read a book: one can only reread it. A good reader, a major reader, an active and creative reader is a rereader."

--Nabokov

[ofbooksandbikes.wordpress.com]

This might come in handy:

[www.amazon.com]

Seeräuber Jenny

]]> <![CDATA[What Does Your Bookshelf Say About You, Wannabe?]]> I asked my bookshelves what they said about me. They said I am a bitter old man with an unhealthy obsession with buying books. I hate it when they agree with my wife.

Ron_Obvious

]]> <![CDATA[What Does Your Bookshelf Say About You, Wannabe?]]> @snappaloosa: I hope you have the Gawyck series. They're out of print but so very cool.

BettyCrocker

]]> <![CDATA[What Does Your Bookshelf Say About You, Wannabe?]]> As I have no money and have moved across the country, leaving all my pretty books in my father's basement, I can only hope that my poster collection of half drugged kittens in hammocks is able to in some way convey the essense of me to the world.

adminslave

]]> <![CDATA[What Does Your Bookshelf Say About You, Wannabe?]]> "It is either the Koran, or it is not the Koran." Goodbye library at Alexandria!

heroinandpeeps

]]> <![CDATA[What Does Your Bookshelf Say About You, Wannabe?]]> @Lonesome_George: Of course. This should be obvious: YOU ARE THE ONLY PERSON IN THE HISTORY OF THE ENTIRE UNIVERS (to present) WHO REREADS BOOKS.

Claystil

]]> <![CDATA[What Does Your Bookshelf Say About You, Wannabe?]]> I am disturbed by the books shelved by color in the photo.

blix

]]> <![CDATA[What Does Your Bookshelf Say About You, Wannabe?]]> "Ezra Klein" is the latecomer: people have been using their book collections to impress people since ancient times.

P.S. The Mughal emperor Akbar had a fabulous library and was illiterate. (Cf. the impending George W. Bush "library" in Texarkana.)

trojanhorse

]]> <![CDATA[What Does Your Bookshelf Say About You, Wannabe?]]> A friend of mine came over once and told me "you can tell EVERYTHING about a person by their video collection." He was a film major, and failed to be impressed by my workout tapes. Even the MTV ones!

raincoaster

]]> <![CDATA[What Does Your Bookshelf Say About You, Wannabe?]]> "The Audacity of Hope" and that Gawker guide book strategically bookmarked so I can yell,"Don't tell me how it ends! I haven't finished it yet!"

heroinandpeeps

]]> <![CDATA[What Does Your Bookshelf Say About You, Wannabe?]]> All my books' spines face the wall, so I can selectively turn around those I deem will impress guests to my gracious home and avoid the faux pas of having Important People see my less worthy titles. It's niche posing at its finest.

WideStanceRomancer

]]> <![CDATA[What Does Your Bookshelf Say About You, Wannabe?]]> i dream of one day owning a trap door bookshelf, one of those ones that open onto a secret passage. except instead of a secret passageway, it'll just reveal a second bookshelf stocked to the nines with the full sweet valley high collection.

mydeadgayson

]]> <![CDATA[What Does Your Bookshelf Say About You, Wannabe?]]> @BettyCrocker:
My husband actually gave me cold-hard cash to increase my gay Gothic romance collection as long as I moved my current holdings to a shelf where he couldn't see the Fabio-meets-Tom-of-Finland covers-- they were alternately making him giggle and giving him an inferiority complex.

snappaloosa

]]> <![CDATA[What Does Your Bookshelf Say About You, Wannabe?]]> @Lonesome_George: You are not alone. I have a handful of books that I read over every few years. The rest of the bookshelf is stuffed with travel guides, geeky computer books (not mine), various bills and paperwork and the books I haven't managed to give away to the woman at work with the express bus commute to Staten Island. Most people only notice the huge array of liquor though.

I Don't Get It

]]> <![CDATA[What Does Your Bookshelf Say About You, Wannabe?]]> I find displaying books to be at odds with my minimalist aesthetic.
CLEAN SURFACES!
CLEAN SURFACES!

Gayyker

]]> <![CDATA[What Does Your Bookshelf Say About You, Wannabe?]]> My bookshelf afirms an abiding interest in worlds that don't exist, a disturbing amount of novels centered around small towns in Maine, a universe torn by war, and manga.

=(

I also have a ton of etiquitte books from the fifties that talk about 'pulling a boner' which is hilarious because I had to explain what that meant now to my grandmother.

Tenno

]]> <![CDATA[What Does Your Bookshelf Say About You, Wannabe?]]> @MattGaymon: Trade ya some gently used TitanMen for anything with Zak Spears in it!

BettyCrocker

]]> <![CDATA[What Does Your Bookshelf Say About You, Wannabe?]]> @Dickdogfood: um, does choire know about you? because, hi? YOU TWO CLEARLY BELONG TOGETHER.

the supergoddess

]]> <![CDATA[What Does Your Bookshelf Say About You, Wannabe?]]> My bookshelf is full of James Baldwin, Hunter S. Thompson and Richard Wright books. Does this mean that I want to be a gay drug addict who marries white women?

IronSheik

]]> <![CDATA[What Does Your Bookshelf Say About You, Wannabe?]]> I have my "New York" section and my "Gay" section and my "ROCK ROCK ROCK" section, and everything else is organized by the year the author was born. I am a FUCKING LOOOOON.

Dickdogfood

]]> <![CDATA[What Does Your Bookshelf Say About You, Wannabe?]]> @BettyCrocker: My bookshelf is one of my dresser drawers, and it is a fitting home for my collection of books, if books means gay porn.

SchmatSchmaymon

]]> <![CDATA[What Does Your Bookshelf Say About You, Wannabe?]]> I find that what most people try to say through their books is better said through my collection of Fabergé eggs.

ragepotato

]]> <![CDATA[What Does Your Bookshelf Say About You, Wannabe?]]> @Lonesome_George: No. I like to smell them again, too. If you listen, you can hear the words inside feeling lonely.

VirusWithShoes

]]> <![CDATA[What Does Your Bookshelf Say About You, Wannabe?]]> I keep all the books in the bedroom, as I don't want anyone to see the self-help books until after I've gotten what I wanted.

Itsjustcatnip

]]> <![CDATA[What Does Your Bookshelf Say About You, Wannabe?]]> @PandoraSpocks:

In lieu of flowers, I sent a book.

koala325

]]> <![CDATA[What Does Your Bookshelf Say About You, Wannabe?]]> @Gregoire: Just make sure that the spines are bent and the books look worn. . . Then people KNOW that you've read them.

HookerfaceAnon

]]> <![CDATA[What Does Your Bookshelf Say About You, Wannabe?]]> Books do furnish a room.

Elektra

]]> <![CDATA[What Does Your Bookshelf Say About You, Wannabe?]]> Um, there are over two thousand books in this house including hard cover novels from the forties and fifties, twenty years of textbooks, tons of paperbacks, dozens of trashy celeb biographies and a set of the Haahvahd Classics, from which you might reasonably conclude that I am already dead.

PandoraSpocks

]]> <![CDATA[What Does Your Bookshelf Say About You, Wannabe?]]> My bookshelves are battered Ethan Allen Georgian Court from craigslist, and they are a fitting home for my gay Gothic romance collection.

BettyCrocker

]]> <![CDATA[What Does Your Bookshelf Say About You, Wannabe?]]> I had my blogroll mounted and framed.

Botswana Meat Commission FC

]]> <![CDATA[What Does Your Bookshelf Say About You, Wannabe?]]> I have an excellent collection of books helping hold up my coffee table.

@Gregoire:
My guests NEVER comment on my collection of Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew mysteries. They do, though, seem a little creeped out by my Parker Stevenson/Shaun Cassidy/Pamela Sue Martin action figures.

koala325

]]> <![CDATA[What Does Your Bookshelf Say About You, Wannabe?]]> I impress people with my knowledge of YouTube viral video stars (and how to become one).

EleanorRigby

]]> <![CDATA[What Does Your Bookshelf Say About You, Wannabe?]]> I just display the podcasts of reviews of books on my shelf.

belltolls

]]> <![CDATA[What Does Your Bookshelf Say About You, Wannabe?]]> Holy crap, were you just in my apartment to witness me gazing contentedly at my bookshelf and congratulating myself for being so awesome? Oh, you weren't? Uh... never mind! I totally don't do that.

flossy

]]> <![CDATA[What Does Your Bookshelf Say About You, Wannabe?]]> I never read books. That time could be better spent smoking cigarettes or thinking about pavement.

Ha Ha Sound

]]> <![CDATA[What Does Your Bookshelf Say About You, Wannabe?]]> I bought a Buick. Just in case people were having trouble figuring out I'm old.

KarenUhOh

]]> <![CDATA[What Does Your Bookshelf Say About You, Wannabe?]]> @In Other News...: One of the few pieces of furniture I own that is NOT from Ikea.

TheHonJudgeSmails

]]> <![CDATA[What Does Your Bookshelf Say About You, Wannabe?]]> I will admit that when a new person comes to my apartment and they don't even bother to peruse what books are on my shelf, they go down a notch. Cause they obviously aren't very interested in books, and they obviously don't care that I am. Actually, that's two notches!

SeeingI

]]> <![CDATA[What Does Your Bookshelf Say About You, Wannabe?]]> Am I the only person who enjoys rereading books?

Lonesome_George

]]> <![CDATA[What Does Your Bookshelf Say About You, Wannabe?]]> @Ummwhat: not the shelves themselves, they are a fine mahogany.

Ummwhat

]]> <![CDATA[What Does Your Bookshelf Say About You, Wannabe?]]> Also, what does Hamilton's aunt think about this?

In Other News...

]]> <![CDATA[What Does Your Bookshelf Say About You, Wannabe?]]> @TheHonJudgeSmails: It's okay to admit you got the dang thing from the clearance outlet at Ikea.

In Other News...

]]> <![CDATA[What Does Your Bookshelf Say About You, Wannabe?]]> I'd like to have Henry Rollins' bookshelves in my home. Shit, I'd take Henry Winkler's for that matter. Mine are just shameful.

Ummwhat

]]> <![CDATA[What Does Your Bookshelf Say About You, Wannabe?]]> I give away a lot of my books through bookcrossing.com or paperbackswap.com. I don't really need books sitting around that I won't probably read again.

smitty

]]> <![CDATA[What Does Your Bookshelf Say About You, Wannabe?]]> I make sure that guests to my apartment are escorted by my complete collection of Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew novels, their blue and yellow spines sending the appropriate social message.

Gregoire

]]> <![CDATA[What Does Your Bookshelf Say About You, Wannabe?]]> My bookshelf says: "You cheap fuck, you haggled with the guy at the hardware store over a $15 bookcase?"

TheHonJudgeSmails

]]> <![CDATA[What Does Your Bookshelf Say About You, Wannabe?]]> I impress dates with my lack of money, knowledge of comics and drunkenly slurring at them. And if that doesn't work, I can recite "Oh The Places You Will Go" by heart.

mitchel_stevens

]]> <![CDATA[What Does Your Bookshelf Say About You, Wannabe?]]> "here are all the books i have ever read ever"

nikaoh

]]> <![CDATA[What Does Your Bookshelf Say About You, Wannabe?]]> I go out of my way to keep my iPod for my eyes ONLY. My friends do not need to know how much Ashlee Simpson I have downloaded or what's on my "grlpwr" playlist.

BK_KT

]]>