Musing Monday..."Big As Trees...Brains Like Peas"

Another Monday, another question from the desk of MizB at Should Be Reading...

This week’s musing asks…

Do you like looking at other people’s bookshelves?

Oh, if only I could!
But to tell you the truth, I can't say I really know many people with bookcases of lovely books to peruse.
Or if they do, maybe they are not letting me into their houses! Gosh, I never considered that...

Seriously, we readers must remember we are in a minority book-wise. I won't quote those terrible statistics again. They are too depressing. But know that most people to not read books, yet alone own enough to fill a bookcase. Our worry about what to do with all our books, the decision whether to part with some or squeeze another bookcase into our house somewhere or live with the random piles doting the landscape is not an issue most people face.
Sad but true.

I think a bookcase can tell you a lot about a person. First, of course, that they own enough books to fill it up, already a wonderful thing! Another reader, one of the rare breed! But also you can see what sorts of books they love, especially what books they care enough about to keep. And then, how do they organize them? By subject, alphabetically, by color..or not at all. I think it is telling and interesting. And so much fun!

Now, one person who I know who reads as much as me, my sister-in-law, has no book cases full of books. It never really occurred to be before, but how can this be? I loan her a fair number of books and when she is done with them, they will sit in a box waiting for me to take them back. She seems to be the odd book lover that has no desire to actually keep any of the books she reads, something I can not relate to. And of course, she was the first person I know to get an e-reader, an Evil Kindle.I guess she can hand you her Kindle so you can look at what she owns,but really, is that in any way a similar experience?

OK, I have backed away, a bit, from my dismissive hatred of e-readers but that raises another issue. When all the books are digital, where will those lovely bookcases be found? Sure, you can make cyber book shelves, like the ones on Library Thing and Goodreads, but come on, it is not the same. No old book smell, no beautiful spines all lined up perfectly. You can't pick one up, feel the weigh of it, open it to read a page or two, getting lost, for just a moment, in another world...awww...wonderful.

Yeah, I know. I am a dinosaur.
A dinosaur who needs to build some more bookshelves.
And I am fine with that.