Houses With Books

A house without books

Is a heartless edifice

No stories, no soul

Build for me a shack

Every wall covered with shelves

Each shelf filled with books

No ivied mansion

With fixtures of finest gold

Could be more desired

I’ve been going to estate sales again. No real treasures this week, but I realized as I walked through houses, marveling at the objets d’art, some beautiful, some bizarre, that people have collected, and browsing through these museums of their lives, that I spend far less time in a house where there are no books. I suppose that makes me a bit judgmental, but a house with no books seems incomplete.

This is fairly hypocritical of me. Ninety percent of the books I buy now are for my e-reader. And I know a good many well read people who seldom buy a book, instead borrowing from libraries. I do still purchase print books, though, and I have a good many from which to choose. Still, when I die, and you visit an estate sale to pore over my worldly goods, look for my Kindle. There are thousands of books on there.

Peace, people!

Author: nananoyz

I'm a semi-retired crazy person with one husband and two cats.

45 thoughts on “Houses With Books”

      1. Before we moved we had 3000. I had to get the MR to cut it down. I mean It wasn’t the space as such, it was the packing of these books, getting enough boxes even. A total nightmare as it was and as I said to him as I wrestled them from his clasp, do we really need five editions..the same editions of Tom Sawyer? DO we need Teach Yourself? Norwegian. Cos you don’t. Grow you own Roses? When you don’t. We agreed on 1500. But even then after we got here and all the boxes bursting on the path in the rain and then every box I opened looking for the frying pan, but finding books, well there was another cull. My rule has been one comes into the house one goes out to the charity shop. Alas I have had to sneak them– cos I know he poses them— ,as I used to have to sneak them out in the old days way back to keep the numbers down. And that has led to some hairy moments, shall we say….

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      3. They do add things to room and in addition to having the bulk of them in our attic sitting room/study which is a big room so it can take them, I have them dotted about strategically! There’s even a pile of big oldies right now on the hearth in the main sitting room seeing as it is summer and no fire gets lit. x (You know when we moved a neighbour actually gave us a book on novel ways on how to display books in your house.. YEP.

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  4. I use the library for large print ……soo many books ….I’m not wasting my money ….and , I really prefer the actual books, the smell, seeing how far I read, sometimes seeing peoples notes….I prefer reality

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  6. I prefer real books! But they are piling up and we’ll be making donations to the library soon. We finally caved and have a Kindle on the way. I’m not sure I’ll like reading that way, though.

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    1. My husband bought me my first kindle. I told him he’d wasted his money. I like the way a “real” book feels and smells, etc. Now, eight years later I never leave home without it. The best part is I’m NEVER without a book.

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  7. Oldest daughter gifted me her old Kindle. I just never could really commit to it. I want paper and ink and real pages to turn. I do pass on what I read though to family, friends or donations. I will always be a “real book” girl I think 🙂

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    1. And I thought I was, as well, until I got a kindle and learned I could have any book I wanted at any time, day or night, with just a click. True story—one Christmas before I had a kindle I woke my husband up in the middle of the night and said, “I do NOT want a kindle for Christmas.” Well, sure enough he’d bought me one, so he returned it and got me something else. Several months later a co-worker brought hers to school and let me fiddle with it. I had to eat some crow and tell David I was wrong. He bought me one for mother’s day and I’ve now I’m on Kindle #4. I still love printed books, but the kindle is wonderful as well.

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  8. I used to collect books. I had boxes and boxes of them. I used to work for a printing company, and one bene was that I could take all of the paper boxes I could use. I had 50 at one point, full of stuff. Then I went all Marie Kondo on them and only kept the ones that sparked joy. I don’t read much (except for technical manuals and then watch out). So I managed to condense all of my worldly books into one bookshelf. Oh, they are the best of the best (to me) and I have a whole shelf for my wife as well. Additionally there are some here and there in the house. I bought my wife a really old copy of Pudd’nhead Wilson in a special box for Christmas and it’s on her desk. We’ve since moved to all audiobooks and I use the iPad for everything else. I couldn’t give them away at the end – took most to the Goodwill. Don’t feel too bad – they were mostly old Javascript and SQL books from software that goes extinct every 6 months or so.

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  9. I sort of set myself a book budget every year and nearly every dime of that goes to ebooks. I’ve been fine with that for the last few years, but I’ve realized that there are quite a few books that I’d really loved to have a physical copy of. I hate that I don’t have those books.

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    1. When I go to garage and estate sales I always head to the books first. There are some physical books I search for. I’d love a hard copy of To Kill a Mockingbird, and Edgar Allen Poe’s works.

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      3. I have no idea how or where I got that. I think Hubby (the non-reader of all things) had it when we got together. When I saw your mention of it, I had to go hunting to see if I remembered correctly that I even had it.

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      5. Some of the books sitting on my shelves make me laugh. As I said, my Hubby does NOT read, but he had all these books. I have no clue where he got them all unless his mom and grandmother filled the built in shelves in his house with books like they did the walls with art when he moved in. I know these all had to come from him as I only ever had books that I’d read and was interested in. I’ve never been a huge fan of horror and I know that Poe dives pretty deep into the creepy end, so I’ve never read anything of his other than what was required in school (oh, so long ago).

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      7. I have a couple he actually asked for because he thought he could enjoy them. He got to page 92 of the first book (or something like that) and never finished. It is now a joke every time I start a new book that he is ahead of me because he is on page 92. That lasts about a hour before he can’t claim that anymore.

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      2. It is. These estate sales I attend are a prime example of that. Folks, even wealthy folks, surround themselves with a bunch cheap crap. I’m not immune either. Time to start getting rid of my own crap. Oh, except for this necklace, oh and that oddly shaped bowl….

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