Sigh

[altivo]

Don't want to actually read anything, but want your friends to think you're an intellectual? Now you can!

You can even fill your shelves with law books to make a room look really sophisticated and scholarly.

Of course they neglect to mention the fact that anyone who actually can read will recognize Readers' Digest Condensed Books for the schlock that they are. And old encyclopedias, randomly selected, are even less likely to impress anyone other than your interior decorator, who probably hasn't read anything that didn't have color pictures since leaving school...

Have a look here. And you thought I was kidding when I kept describing Americans as illiterates who are concerned only with appearances...

Comments

[herefox.livejournal.com]

And here I spend most of my time trying to figure out how I can squeeze another bookshelf in to combat the overflow of my current ones :-/

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Me too. But that sort of thing is why we are mutual friends. ;p

[linnaeus.livejournal.com]

"These books are carefully screened for content and contain no multiple copies."

I like that. Otherwise I'm picturing the appearance-minded nonliterate folks who are looking to impress people ending up with a bookshelf filled with old gynecological reference books and about twenty hardbound copies of "Lolita".

Granted, that would still be slightly less embarrassing than a shelf full of Reader's Digest Condensed Books...

[quickcasey.livejournal.com]

That would appear just awesome.
You know, a yard of 85% fiction with no duplicates might prove interesting. I'd take a couple yards.
As if I know what to do with the books I have. I need more shelves, myself.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

I'm surprised they don't offer a medical book special for those who want to look like a doctor. ;p

Yeah, Readers' Digest Condensed is the ultimate in pure schlockiness. Every so often someone will bring a whole box of them to the library and become offended that we won't take them even as free gifts. Even if put into our book sale, they never sell. We just have to pay to recycle them.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Oh, but yours are probably all dog-eared (wolf-eared?) and jumbled, mismatched in size and color. You can have these selected to fit any decor and look just "stunning" (or was that "stunted"? I forget.)

[megadog.livejournal.com]

Books by the yard are common in .UK too; they tend to get used to decorate theme-pubs, questionably-pretentious restaurants/coffeeshops and suchlike.

[quickcasey.livejournal.com]

"mismatched in size and color" Now that you mention it, yes. I never knew my books would fall short of the aesthetics offered by "Books by the Yard."

[hrrunka]

Almost as bad as the book shelves I've see in some places (pubs and restaurants, typically), where the books have been drilled and secured with a length of dowel so that they can't even be taken out of the shelves...

[brokkentwolf.livejournal.com]

That's just... sad.

Science Books

[keeganfox.livejournal.com]

So does my circa 1880 five volume set of "Science for All" count as cool or pathetic? I have actually read just about all of the first volume. I love the article on "electric candles". A "newfangled" eroding electrode arc lamp...

Why are my eyes itchy and burning?!?

@.@

[woodychitwn.livejournal.com]

See now... I think you're taking slightly too harsh of a look at this...

Yeah, most of these books will probably spend the rest of their lives sitting on shelves looking pretty... But these are books that couldn't be sold in their stores (One of which I passed by this very morning) and the alternative is destruction and recycling.

And I can't personally accept that SOME of those books won't eventually grab the owner's attention and be read, or loaned to friends. Thereby inspiring further research into other works by that writer...

If every home in America were required to have a bookshelf filled with random works of literature both great and small, this nation wouldn't be nearly as illiterate and concerned only with appearances as you feel it is.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

I hope you're joking. Readers' Digest Condensed Books don't even qualify as books. They are hardly better than having ten years of bound issues of the National Enquirer. I'm really afraid that people who buy books solely as decorator objects are not likely to read them even by accident.

The stuff that won't sell in a used book store is really dregs. Old encyclopedias, compiled statutes, condensed books, and tired cookbooks. Even just making people look at yesterday's Sun Times would be a thousand times better for them and society. ;p

Re: Science Books

[altivo.livejournal.com]

That one is definitely cool. So are really old encyclopedias (like a century or more old.) XD

[altivo.livejournal.com]

You said it. I agree.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

I've seen that in restaurants before. In fact, I was really upset once. Some of the ruined books were actually valuable, but they'd been selected just for the color of their bindings.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Yes, I've seen that. In fact, I've seen them where the books were glued together, clamped, and then put through a bandsaw to cut just the spine and about a half inch off. That was then glued to the walls. Saves even the cost of bookshelves.

Re: Science Books

[hrrunka]

That parhelia illustration's cool!

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Hee. Mine are just as bad. Even the ones that I've put those clear dust jacket protectors on, like libraries use. Because, of course, they are all different colors and sizes. A decorator's nightmare.

[swampy.livejournal.com]

A lot of my books are tatty, some are falling apart, all of them are generally well thumbed. None of my books are there to impress others. They are there because they serve me well, and I would be happy to be judged, or defined by them, however esoteric they may be.

Re: Science Books

[altivo.livejournal.com]

I've never seen that word before, but based on the Greek roots, I'm guessing it's a reference to what we call "sun dogs" in the vernacular. And I have seen them. They're pretty cool and weird. I guess they only appear in really, really cold weather.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

I agree. In our old house in Chicago we had bookshelves lining the walls on the second floor, and they were visible from the street through a large plate glass window. A couple of people in the neighborhood actuall said to me that they were dying to get into my house and see what was on those shelves.

On the other hand, I've had a lot more people make really inane remarks about books. In my apartment many years ago, the spare bedroom was the library, with lots of bookshelves. The sitting room had stuffed furniture and the musical instruments in it (piano, clavichord, etc.) and there was a decorative shelf with various gadgets on it and just a few, maybe a dozen books. Some people actually walked in the door, laid eyes on that lonely shelf with its handful of occupants, and said things like "Gosh, I've never seen anyone with so many books. You must be really intelligent."

As you can guess, I had to struggle to keep from retching.

Re: Science Books

[keeganfox.livejournal.com]

Thanks, it's all etchings and engravings. Photography was just getting started, and the pages are printed with an actual press. You can feel the impressions in the paper. All hand composited too!

Re: Science Books

[typographer.livejournal.com]

It just two more years one of my sets of Encyclopedias will be a century old! Woot!

[swampy.livejournal.com]

I hope you showed these people into your library? :)

I don't have room for a library here, so I only have my most useful books on my bookcase, but I have, probably, hundreds in my parents loft in sealed plastic storage boxes. If I ever get more space, then they will once again be placed appropriately, ie, where they can be taken down from a shelf.

I fear that the art of reading for pleasure is in decline, as are the arts of thinking and reasoning.