So now, of course, the big question is: What’s on YOUR ideal bookshelf? Mine would include: The History of Love, Epilogue, Ghost World, Peter Pan, Private Lives, Operating Instructions, Sense and Sensibility, The BFG, Middlesex, the list goes on…
(Top photo of my sister and her husband by Max Wanger)
Hi, what a great web blogPromotional Modeling
After reading some nice stuff in your article I really feel speechlessPromotional Modeling
I was just having a conversation with my assistant editor today about books. I have a deep, hoarding love for print. While a Kindle or iPad have their appeal, I prefer to hold the book, smell the book, dog-ear the book and LOVE the book. I’m 24 and already have such an extensive book collection. I have a lot of children’s books (Roald Dahl everything, The Babysitters Club, Nancy Drew, Chasing Redbird, pictures boks etc), thrillers, mysteries and fiction fill most of it. I’m just starting to get into biographies and historical books. I have a ridiculous cook book collection, thanks to my English grandmother who was a chef and sees me as the granddaughter fit to keep her collection alive. I also have kept almost every poetry, creative writing, play, short story book from college. I’m saddened by the fact that people don’t love books like they used to. Next week, I’m heading to The Monkey’s Paw, a book shop here in Toronto that has a book vending machine. For $2, you get a book out of a vending machine. You don’t know what kind of book, it’s a mystery but I’m so excited. I hope it’s something completely random.
This book is totally going on my wishlist! *Love* it! xo~Hannah B.
What a great story! I love books…and love to see what people include on their bookcases! I’ll definitely have to check out the book you mentioned where people choose their favorites!
This may be an answer to the “why they chose each book” question?
Falling in love with someone’s bookshelf is like falling in love with their MIND. It’s PERFECT! And also one of the reasons I will never convert to e-books or e-readers.
When my now-boyfriend and I first started becoming friends, he alphabetized my roommates’ and my DVD shelf. That cinched it for me ;)
lovely!
Valentina
http://valentinaduracinsky.blogspot.com/
I slept in my friend’s older brothers room once a few years ago and he had a fantastic bookshelf. I joked that I would be marrying her brother and becoming part of the family. Hasn’t happened yet, but it turns out he’s also pretty tall…
I always hang around the bookshelf when I’m feeling shy at a houseparty! Best place to distract from awkward conversations. : )
This is how I fell in love with my husband. Years before we began dating, I was introduced to him at my first ever apartment when he came over with a mutual friend. Chris (my now husband), always a little uncomfortable in new social situations, went straight to my book shelf. I remember he and I talking about my books. He sat in an arm chair and I sat on the floor next to him. I was smitten from that day forward.
Fast forward a few years. I throw a big Holiday party. He attends, with same friend. As the late night began to creep in, I found him in my office staring at my bookshelf. I remember standing next to him and nervously talking about my book collection. We had our first kiss that night and have been together ever since.That was 8 years ago this December 18th. I’ll never forget.
We’re still book fiends. I’m a librarian and he’s an urban planner now. We plan vacations around book shopping. Seriously!
Whenever I visit a new home I go straight to the bookshelf (in a discrete way), then take a look at their dvd collection and cd collection. I love to get lost in other people’s bookshelves and could easily fall for a guy with the right collection. Also, a good collection of cooking books would make me interested :-)
My husband and I started “dating” over Skype after being email-introduced by a mutual friend (we were living in different countries at the time). — When I finally visited him in the United States, his bookshelf knocked my socks off! Yep, definitely a factor in falling in love.
I knew the person I would end up with would have to be a reader. My husband and I have totally different reading tastes though. I definitely prefer fiction and he loves nonfiction about the history of Rome or the Napoleonic Wars or something like that. What’s funny is, we’ve rubbed off on each other a bit. I read much more nonfiction now and LOVE it (currently reading The Black Count). He’s reading more fiction and fantasy. I don’t know if I could choose favorites…Harry Potter, Crime and Punishment, The BFG (love that book too!), To Kill a Mockingbird…
i love the ‘i knew this was it’ moments.
i love the ‘i knew this was it’ moments.
How sweet! My husband and I both say we realized each other was “the one” when we found out we share the very same, very uncommon favorite book.
I’m dying of curiosity, what is your favorite book?
Oh how I love reading anything book-related! Mine would be Paul Theroux the old Patagonian express, AA Gill is away, Julie and Julia, Sophie’s Choice, and of course some Irish writers, Roddy Doyles The Snapper, a Seamus Heaney book of poetry, Joseph O’Connor Star of the Sea, and of course, anything by Maeve Binchy!
Three Irish girls write a book blog on everything from high-brow literature to chick-lit and urban fantasy.
http://www.theenchanteddoors.blogspot.com
This is so cool, so true, and the story of your sister and Paul is truly beautiful. I’m curious to see how I will end up stocking my own bookcase one day and what people will gather of me from it!
I love this story, it’s really interesting how much you can get to know about people through what books they read/have. I did a similar post about what you can learn at a bookstore just by seeing what section people are in. Thanks for the post, it was great!
I could definitely fall in love with someone based on their book shelf. And out of love as well! My ideal bookshelf? I have no idea where to begin!
But what you are missing in the book, I also miss from this post – what are your reasons for chosing these books?:-)
Love the brother’s letter in the book in the comment above btw.
Thank goodness I’m married…”everybody poops,” is showcased on my bookcase :)
Yes, I love people’s bookcases! It’s so interesting to see what books are on display – and whether or not they have actually been read. I’m a big believer in having an ideal bookshelf, and in keeping with this, I only buy books after I have read them (unless they’re textbooks, in which case I strive to only keep those I’ve read that I also like). Unfortunately, this means that many of my books’ spines haven’t been cracked, which gives the wrong impression.
I read a book just like the one you’re describing, which was also recently released, but it was called “Unpacking My Library: Writers and Their Books.” I believe its interviewees did speak more about why they had the books they had.
I just ordered this for two people in my family! Thanks for the heads up!
What a great story! Mine would include a lof of beat writers and a few how-tos and cookbooks. Classics as well! :)
I was just thinking about this as I put away my books on the shelf in our new home. Reveals so much.
When my grandmother passed away, I took a few books from her bookshelf and added them to mine, and when my grandfather passed away I took a few of his as well – so it’s become a collage of my books and theirs.
Also, while my bookcase is mostly classics, I’m a hypochondriac and worrier so I totally have the Worst-Case Scenario book prominently displayed as well. Haha.
What a sweet story! Must-haves would include: Anna Karenina, War & Peace, some Flannery O’Connor (my husband fell in love with ME partly because I quoted her when we first met; that, and my prematurely gray hair), Anne of Green Gables, Harry Potter, Thomas Aquinas, After Virtue, Aristotle.
Looking at someone’s bookshelf is one of the first things I do when I see their home for the first time. I can’t help it! Love the idea for this book.
The first time my husband invited me to his apartment I studied his bookshelf for quite a long time. Perhaps too long. We now joke about how nervous he was about it because it really did reveal a lot of who he was! Obviously, I liked what I saw. ;)
This is wonderful! My ideal bookshelf would have a lot of art/design coffee table type books and the entire collection of Haruki Murakami’s works FOR SURE.
whenever i go to someone’s house i always make a beeline to their bookshelves. i think bookshelves reveal so much about people, and even had an idea that someone should photograph bookshelves like that “what’s in your fridge” photo project. anyway, mine would definitely include: the mandarins, zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance, mating, women in love, crossing to safety, still life with woodpecker, on the road, annnnnnd philip pullman’s dark materials trilogy, because it is brilliant and probably shaped the way i think.
I love your sisters story!! I hope that happens to me one day =)
I’m all for books and none of that e-reader stuff. actual paper bound books. I think it’s great to know what your role models read and what they’ve been inspired by. I shall definitely check that book out. thanks for sharing!
I hope I meet my future spouse at a bookstore, book signing, or library. My ideal bookshelf would include The Poisonwood Bible, Prodigal Summer, my highlighted and tattered Nietzsche books from college, The Boxcar Children Suprise island, and anything James Baldwin.
What a great book! My rule of thumb with dating a guy was that he had to have books in his place. Extra points + a happier relationship if he had GOOD books! Putting this one on my list.
This is wonderful! I LOVE reading people’s favorite book lists.
My favorites are Possession by A.S Byatt (really, anything by Byatt), A Natural History of the Senses, Color: A History, and Out of Africa. I have read all of these books multiple times. That’s the true meaning of a favorite, you can always learn something new from it.
John Waters famously said, “If you go home with somebody and they don’t have books, don’t f-ck them.”
I also love looking at others’ bookshelves whenever I visit their homes. I’m incredibly proud of mine, and consider it a hobby that I continue to curate.
My ideal bookshelf would look a lot like my current one! There would be several classic tomes on urban policy (“The Death and Life and Great American Cities” by Jane Jacobs, and “The Image of the City” by Kevin Lynch to name a few), as well as some of my favorite literature (“The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay” by Michael Chabon, “The Fortress of Solitude” by Jonathan Lethem, “Let the Great World Spin” by Colum McCann” and “The Sound and the Fury” by William Faulkner).
What an interesting conversation starter. My boyfriend has a bookshelf of very serious, hardback Russian literature. I have a hard time getting through anything Russian, although I have tried harder since meeting him. Even though we have different taste in books, we both share a love of literature, and to me, that is the most important thing.
I love peeking at other people’s bookshelves, unless, of course, it is filled with trinkets sans books. My ideal bookcase would have the following:
Foucault’s Pendulum, Umberto Eco; The Monk, Matthew Lewis; A Clockwork Orange, Anthony Burgess;
The Blood Countess, Andrei Codrescu; One Hundred Years of Solitude, Gabriel Garcia Marquez; Sabbath’s Theater, Philip Roth;
Midnight Blue Collection, Nancy Collins; Morpho Eugenia, A. S. Byatt; The Club Dumas, Arturo Perez-Reverte; Too Loud a Solitude, Bohumil Hrabal; Disgrace, J. M. Coetzee; and In Search of Schrodinger’s Cat, John Gribbin.
People are very curious about others’ bookcases, it’s a total window into who they are… I get comments from house guests a lot from our bookshelf from my husband’s sports biography books to my historical fiction collection and fashion biographies. I am not so proud (so to speak) of the chic lit, but it’s there, what are you gonna do?
I moved a few times when my now-husband and I were dating, and for each move he helped me carry my seemingly endless boxes of books. Later he told me that my love of books was one of the major things that attracted him to me :o)
I met my husband in a college English class, but I was dating someone else at the time. One day in a class discussion he quoted Atlas Shrugged, and I knew it was the start of something big… we were married four years (and many books) later. My list includes Atlas Shrugged, The Name of the Wind, Hatchet, Great Expectations, Great With Child, Cloudstreet, and Brave New World.
Exactly why I STILL refuse to jump on the Kindle bandwagon – I love having physical books. I love reading them, smelling them, holding them – and above all I love looking at them all sitting side by side in my apartment when I get home.
My bookshelf is very eclectic – I have classics like The Catcher in the Rye & Anna Karenina, modern fiction faves (The Art of Racing in the Rain, or anything by Tana French) non-fiction (Malcolm Gladwell), all my travel books, books in French from my French major days – plus old favorites like Harry Potter, and even an old Sweet Valley High book :)
Heard about that book – great post! That´s a good question. I actually feel like that while browsing through someone´s playlist or cd rack :)
Talking about books, I´d say:
– Slouching towards Bethlehem, Joan Didion
– Don´t ask me why, Tania Kindersley
– A Fine Balance, Rohinton Mistry
– Holy Cow, Sarah Macdonald
– The Beauty and the Beast
if i am at a guy’s apartment, i am on the lookout for his books. if there aren’t any, it’s a bright red flag for me! :)
THanks for posting this! This is right up my alley as a book lover and librariand PLUS I have two book group book exchanges this holiday season and was uncertain about what to bring. This will be a great choice! Illustrations look cool. Would be neat to have another book that was photographs of people’s books….
This is a fabulous idea for a book. My list would include Pride and Prejudice, Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit, The Picture of Dorian Gray, The Alchemist, Jane Eyre, Harry Potter. I think my list will just continue to get larger and larger the older I get. Or perhaps smaller.
I would love to hear that the man who falls for me, knew he would fall for me because of the contents my bookshelves. Super romantic :)
So true – I love checking out people’s bookshelves. And, come to think of it, a certain book that my husband had on his shelf when we were dating made me fall even harder for him.
My ideal shelf would have the following:
Anne of Green Gables, Bird by Bird, Gone With the Wind, the Bible, Blue Like Jazz, Harry Potter, a Thesaurus, and the Chronicles of Narnia.
fuu, it was the same with me but with cd+dvd+and sure books:) when i met with my man, first time, we spoke about cds, and made changes between us, after that some books came, and i was so surprised when i came to his apartmentt, he has boooks everywhere. and if i write everywhere, mean that everywhere:) imagine:) so there was a lot of books of architecture, he is an architect. and a lot of design, some spiritual books,and more and more…. we live together, fu its been 7years:) and iam pregnant. we have a huge bookcase-2floors . :)
What a great idea for a book, now I am even more madly in love with Thomas Keller!
My husband to be and I fell in love over our facebook “bookshelf” and then coincidentally in the library in college. We still enjoy going to book shops or the library, ordering coffees and reading together on a weekend afternoon.
This is such an interesting post, I thoroughly enjoyed it!
Lea x
It’s Such A Wonderful Life –
http://shebeginstosee.blogsot.com
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This is such an interesting and though provoking post, as always. I love books so I guess i can see how you could fall for someone based on their bookish taste.
awesome, could i steal your sisters love story! a girl can dream… i always spy everyone’s bookcases :) my ideal would be: bone palace ballet by charles bukowski, things fall apart by chinua achebe, the collected poems of octavio paz, langston hughes, pablo neruda, allen ginsberg, sylvia plath, and at least a dozen other poets and then some, purple hibiscus and half of a yellow sun by chimamanda ngozi adichie, on the road by kerouac, living buddha, living christ by thich nhat hanh, mere christianity by cs lewis, roald dahl, shel silverstein, dr. seuss, walden, the poison wood bible, the return of the prodigal son, black elk speaks… i could do this forever.
i love adding to my book shelf (okay shelves and any space in my house that i can fit a book) but i don’t think i could breathe without the ones i’ve mentioned. oh and i’m pretty sure i’m going to love my friend glennon’s book, Carry On, Warrior! just as much as i loved my girl mei’s books: lucky girl and how eskimos keep their babies warm, i gifted both of these to new parents and they loved them. lucky girl for my friends who were in the last days of their adoption of a young chinese girl and the latter for new parents looking for yet another fun parenting book.
I could easily fall in love with a man for his bookshelf, or what’s on his iPod. It tells you something about a person! My all-time favorites include… (my whimsical and nostalgic side) Where the Red Fern Grows, a whole bunch of YA fiction from Roald Dahl to Ramona Quimby, the Harry Potter series, To Kill a Mockingbird, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn… (my bleeding heart side) The Hiding Place, The Chosen, All But My Life, The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind… OH, and let’s not forget my complete collection of Winnie the Pooh. A.A. Milne speaks to me. He is the perfect mix of whimsy and sass and enchantment…which I like to think is kind of like me. (End long comment.)
Mine would be:
Goodnight Mr Tom, The Odyssey, Jane Eyre, Anne of Green Gables, Silas Marner, Cold Comfort Farm, Snow Water by Michael Longley, Love in a Cold Climate, The Hobbit or Lord of the Rings.
i’ve actually whittled down my bookshelf this year. the boytoy & i have merged homes and we just don’t have the room/space for actual books. i haven’t read an actual book in my hands in awhile, i’m now all about the kindle. i know. i have kept some faves, childhood and grown up, as well as cookbooks. his parents have an actual library full of books they have read and when we visit i am always jealous… when i think of rooms full of light and books, it takes me to old english manors/castles where the chairs are leather and it’s solemnly quiet.
Yes!! I’ve loved Jane Mount’s Ideal Bookshelf series and have cookbook prints of hers at home *and* work. :) Btw, if y’all love this type of thing (bookity booksbookbooks:), you may also like this essay by Dave Eggers that was excerpted from the book My Bookstore: Writers Celebrate Their Favorite Places to Browse, Read, and Shop and appeared in the Daily Beast: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/11/13/dave-eggers-s-favorite-bookstore-green-apple-books-san-francisco.html
What a romantic story! I love to look at other people’s bookcases. My dream is to find a house where I can actually have all my books in one library room. For now, most of them are stored in boxes. On my ideal shelve would be Steinbeck’s East of Eden, Faulkner’s short stories, Roald Dahl’s Matilda, Vernon God Little by DBC Pierre, Blindness by Jose Saramago, and my all time favorite: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain. How odd that all these books were written by men. I do love women writers too. Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye, for instance. What an impressive book. And Possession by A.S. Byatt, beautiful! I could go on and on. Don’t get me started on books. :)
Everything written by Raymond Carver, Flannery O’Connor, Song of the Beehive by Frodde Grytten, The Journey of the Empty Bottles by Abdolah Kader, all poetry by Tadeusz Rozewicz, Motherless Brooklyn by Jonathan Lethem, everything by Julian Barnes, in my native language everything written by Mesa Selimovic and Ivo Andric, last week I finished a good book by Bulgarian writer Georgi Gospodinov, Natural novel…But sales flyers and promotional catalogues calm my nerves too:)
I m reading ur blog for an ∞ time, but never commented and finally I ‘faild’ on this:) Greets!
Every book choice has a story behind it! I love knowing why people pick the books they do. My “defining” books would be: Brothers Karamazov, Anne of Green Gables (and every other book by that author), The Screwtape Letters, Orthodoxy, and Jane Eyre. Also, I have a great weakness for books of famous speeches. The Ideal Bookshelf book looks addicting! I might read the whole thing in one sitting.
this is awesome!!! getting this book for sure!
littlekitchie.blogspot.com
I work at an indie bookstore that is all about suggestions and I can’t wait to suggest this later today!
On a personal note, I’ve found that most guys are surprised by the number of books I have. Then I go over to their place and am surprised by how few books they have. Probably should just end it right then & there.
never fell for someone’s bookcase, but i always look for books whenever i go to someone’s house, and find it very disturbing if there are none, or very few… can make me look at someone in a completely different way!
The first piece of forniture that I’ve ever bought was a bookcase, so I find this very interesting!
Funny you should write about this today. I was cleaning out my room for a big move yesterday and found these, which are pretty telling: http://kayaway.tumblr.com/post/36144416067/the-photographic-answer-to-what-kinds-of-books-do
This is exactly how I knew I wanted to get to know my partner. I didn’t know him, but was at his house for a party. About 2 years later we consolidated our bookshelves and started our lives together.
I LOVE looking at people’s bookcases…What a romantic story!! Surprisingly one of the arguments I have with my boyfriend is that I have too much on my bookcase!! I have my autographed books, some childhood books that still mean something and then some random ones.
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