Why I will not be doing the "unread books" meme

[nolly]

The cut'n'pasted text describes unread books as "they sit on the shelf to make you look smart or well-rounded." I use LibraryThing, where the list originates. I have many books tagged unread, including some from that list. Not one of them is on the shelf to make me look smart or well-rounded. I have never bought a book I did not intend to read. Occasionally, I change my mind about a book before I read it, but I generally don't keep those around. My shelves tell you something about who I am and how I think, and what they say is not a lie. The unread books, in fact, are segregated from the read books, and are in my bedroom for easy access, since I do most of my reading in bed at night.

Comments

[lirrin.livejournal.com]

Ditto. My unread books have their own shelf, and while I do occasionally decide I'm no longer interested in a book I bought, I usually get rid of those. Plus, uh, most of them are dreck, certainly not anything to make me look smarter or well-rounded. :)

[brooksmoses]

There are very few books that I own that I bought for myself and didn't intend to read, but I can think of at least one. I mean, how could I not pick up a copy of the Fortran 90 ISO standard in Cyrillic? (I presume Russian, but I don't actually know.) And a few books of math tables, which I bought with much the same impulse that I keep a slide rule around -- they are nifty tools that have become obsolete, and are a connection to history.

I have bought lots of books that I did not intend to read but intended to give to other people, though.

[aldren.livejournal.com]

I'll go one further: I've purchased books with the intent to give them to other people, knowing full-well they will never be read. The incident I'm thinking about involved buying a book on Robert E. Lee to sit next to a model someone had made of The Robert E. Lee.

But in general, yes: Books should be bought to be read.

[nolly.livejournal.com]

Actually, I've bought plenty of books for gifts, but I expected the recipeint to read them, and in most, if not all cases, I know that occurred.

I also have reference books (including cookbooks) I have not read cover-to-cover and do not intend to, but either I have used them, or I intended to when I purchased them, and in most cases, still intend to.

I have never found a Fortran standard in Cyrillic, but I can read enough Russian that I might count it as utilized under the reference-book metric. :)

Alas, the cursor on my slide rule broke, and I haven't found a right-size replacement. (I haven't looked that hard recently, either.)

[brooksmoses]

The entertaining thing is that, while I can't read any Russian [1], I am familiar enough with the Fortran standard that I could recognize it almost immediately, and find my way around the inside of it.

[1] This is not entirely true. I can now recognize "Fortran" in Russian. :)

[nolly.livejournal.com]

I've forgotten the vast majority of the vocabulary I once knew, but I remember the pronunciations well enough to read cognates and a few other words. I would expect a technical standard to contain many cognates.

[howeird]

Agreemesg.
There was a time in my life when I saved every book I read. I had quite an impressive wall of bookcases. In '89 I gave almost all of them to earthquake relief.

I've since built up a half a bookcase full of books (the other half is music and scrapbooks and maps) but most of those are computer-related, and used as book ends for my handful of favorite books. For example, I have every book my friend Nancie McDermott ever wrote.

I've never had books which were bought just for show, but I do have a small stack of books on top one bookcase which are in line to be read. I see there is only one left. Time to hit the used bookstore again.

[firecat]

I did the meme, but I agree with you that my books aren't there to make me look smart and well-rounded. Hardly anyone comes into my house that I need to impress, and if I want to impress someone that I'm smart and well-read, I just have to open my mouth. :)

[nolly.livejournal.com]

I'm not objecting to the meme itself, but I have such a strong visceral reaction to that sentence that I can't get past it to do the meme. I'm well aware that I could remove that for my paste, but my brain is too busy recoiling from the idea of acquiring books in order to lie about myself, because it is a wrong stacked upon a wrong. I realize people do this, but they are not people I want to know.

[paranoyd.livejournal.com]

Weird - I didn't even see that part. I just saw a whole list of books and realized I'd read some of them - although between Jen and me we own almost every one of them.

But not one of them has anything to do with looking smart.

[gunslnger.livejournal.com]

The original post did not have that comment about these books being "on the shelf to make you look smart or well-rounded."

[nolly.livejournal.com]

That's very good to know, and I should go correct a comment left else-journal.

[meep.livejournal.com]

There is 1 book I bought never intending to read it, and it was totally to produce an impression on people if they saw the title (except I don't know where it is)....

It's called =If They Can Keep A Severed Head Alive....=

I bought it from the Strand from the "outside shelves" (aka crap) for 25 cents.

[howeird]

I had no idea someone had written a biography about me! Wow, thanks for the pointer!

[nolly.livejournal.com]

There's something to be said for that.

But me, I'd probably read as much of it as I could stand, or at least intend to do so. That's just how I am.

[shipofools999.livejournal.com]

For me, books I have on my shelf that are unread fall into a couple of categories.
Haven't read Yet.
Reference for when I need it.
Given to me, don't know if I will read, haven't found a new home for it yet.

Mostly it is the Yet that keeps them from being unread.

Wasting valuable bookshelf space on books just to make you look good? What a silly idea. :)

Re: Why I will not be doing the "unread books" meme

[pir-anha.livejournal.com]

*nod*. yeah, i found that line appalling. i don't have a single book that i bought to make myself _look_ smart and well-rounded (i bought most of my books before there was a librarything, and few people would ever get to see them anyway).

i've bought books in order to _make_ myself more well-rounded, and i don't always read them right away. but i tend to get around to them eventually.