Friday, April 04, 2008

Off The Shelf


You can tell alot about someone from their book or DVD collection. For example, mine would tell you that I'm an immature homosexual generation X-er. Really. When Mr. Green and I were house hunting he'd be looking at home big the rooms were, whether the back garden was north or south facing. Meanwhile, I turned into Loyd Grossman, looking at their book shelves and obviously recently tidied up pile of DVDs beside the television. "Who lives in a house like this?"


So, it was with some interest that I came across an article in "The New York Times" entitled "It's Not You, It's Your Books", in which writer Rachel Donadio talks about our reactions to the reading choices of our potential new partners and how their favourite authors could make or break a relationship.


“I did have to break up with one guy because he was very keen on Ayn Rand,” said Laura Miller, a book critic for Salon. “He was sweet and incredibly decent despite all the grandiosely heartless ‘philosophy’ he espoused, but it wasn’t even the ideology that did it. I just thought Rand was a hilariously bad writer, and past a certain point I couldn’t hide my amusement.”


So fellow ninepounders, what does your collection of books and DVDs say about you?

4 comments:

  1. My book collection would say "they're all brand new, you never finish any of us" because they ARE all brand new and I never finish any of them.

    I read non-fiction, can't hack novels. Love books about adventure etc. or biographies.

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  2. My books and music probably would say that I'm a nutjob to most.

    Books are all read back-to-back (and some are read several times). You'll find a few mindnumbing books in the chicklit genre, dictionaries, maps, books on philosophy, religions, job related, childrens books, sci-fi... Not sure what I haven't got on books.
    Records: (no, not only CDs) vinyls are few cause I only kept the most dear to me, CDs are not that many (150?) and will tell you that I listen mainly to "alternative" music regardless of era the music was produced in.

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  3. I'm an obvious Romantic with lots of classical music CDs, lots of vinyl; art books, history books, classical novels etc. My music collection shows how I gave up in the last decade.

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  4. Ach, lost post.

    I was saying how when I came to see this hosue for the first time, I felt like it might have been me living here already - especially as all my books were on the bookshelf.

    I've seen this done on a blog before - people post photos of their shelves. I'D do it if I had any batteries for the camera!

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