Whenever I’m on the hunt for a new place to live, I totally look for enough wall space for books and art. I don’t care how great a place is otherwise if it lacks room for those things. A house without books is like a piñata without candy.

I’m a huge fan of the library. That said I have books all over the house but not a single one on a bookshelf. Books on a shelf don’t make a reader.

Ha ha - I have a library and a kindle, and piles of books everywhere. I’m the worst!

Visceral horror? I feel “visceral horror” at things like animal or child abuse, but can’t imagine using those terms to describe a room without books. I have become somewhat minimalist after moving four times in 10 years and no longer keep books scattered around. And yes, I do read a kindle every night in bed. Quelle horreur!

I started doing what a friend of mine does - give away a book right after reading it. She has no books on the shelves in her home BUT she is a voracious reader. I do keep a few that I want to reference again, and some cookbooks, but i want to minimize the number of books I own. I used to dream about having a personal library with floor-to-ceiling shelves full of books, but after moving once with so many heavy boxes of books, I started regularly purging my collection and donating them to my local library branch that had a bookstore. Why hang on to them? If there's a book I want to read again, I can always borrow it from the library. I would rather support public libraries than hoard books in my home!

If there's a book I want to read again, I can always borrow it from the library.

It was said that famed literary critic Harold Bloom remembered details of the thousands of books he had read--not counting the 50 he wrote. Not all of us are so gifted.

I occasionally bury myself in thousand-page histories. But damned if I can recall more than an outline. So the collection grows.

Come again?

A staged home is not real life. Just like HGTV is not real life. When we sold our house 5 years ago, we did a ot of work before taking the listing photos. I packed up books and we moved 6 bookcases to the garage so we could paint and install carpet, The rooms looked much larger for the photos, and I kept out a box of "To Read" books, until we actually moved.

Quite the provocative way to introduce yourself to the forum, but I'll bite.

Bookshelves or the lack thereof tell one absolutely nothing about the character of other human beings, and to infer they do is myopic at best. I have a home library, and no need for books in every room. That said, having a room largely devoted to books does not make me superior to those who opt to outfit their homes differently. Technology enables people to read in a number of ways, so it's foolish to believe that people are not well-read if they don't own books. Besides, people who don't read at all are not necessarily unpleasant. Maybe they just don't like high-horse riders.

You do you. But you don't get a free pass to cast dispersion on those who do it differently. I mean, come on ... don't you see the silliness of equating soullessness to material goods?

Is it judgmental to call someone judgmental?

While I am used to seeing books in at least the master bedroom when I toured houses I think the lack of books and a lot of other things that make a place look like a home is the desire to show uncluttered spaces. If you really look, other than perhaps children's rooms and not always them, you see no place for books. Ten years ago if donating books places wanted especially matched sets of books to sell to decorators but no more. The idea of comfortable has made way at least for a while to functional. It has been there in the past and it will be interesting to see what designers do to make homes in the future appear comfortable living spaces rather than a place that everything has a place.

Bookshelves are for knick knacks in a post-literate age!

I'm not sure how I would fit a bookshelf into my bedroom. But I do have a massive bookshelf in the dining room and another smaller one in the living room.

I’m an avid reader, but don’t buy many as our library system is consistently rated the best in the country. I more resent those ridiculously staged bookshelves with the pages facing out and the spines to the back. Why?

I agree with the OP and several of you about books in a house. My current library, although existing when we bought the house, looks very similar to our previous house’s library, color and style. One of the previous owners had lived here, first as a teenager, then as the librarian. When she died, there were over ten thousand books in this house! Although we do have the bookcases in the library, we also have books scattered in various rooms and my hobby based in another room has two full length bookcases full of my specialty books.i do know people who have no books in their house, but......

I'm always interested in seeing what books people have on their shelves. That's a big drawback of e-books, their invisibility.

10,000+ books? My dust allergies are flaring up just thinking about that....

I have some books in the house, but not many -- mostly cookbooks and other non-fiction in a bookcase and some reference books in other rooms.

improvatrix- You/we represent a minority opinion. How do I know? Because I've seen one too many posts here where someone shows a photo of the bookshelves in their house and asks: "What's the best thing to fill these with?" ;-)

I have a few books but probably no more than 30.. I’m an avid reader but I do most of my reading on my kindle as it takes up less space.

^^^yup! I read several books a week and I have no bookshelves. I read everything on my iPad Kindle App. I have a small house and books take up too much space.

I am a library gal. My husband is a library guy. We both read and read and read. Just because those books are not part of our home decor, does not indicate that we are not well read, nor well educated. The proof in the pudding is when you discuss what you have read; not what and why you display the collection.

10,000 books in one house? Why not share some of them?

The history prof I assisted accumulated at least 30-40 books a week; the same at the two or three other universities he taught at. I visited him once at his Manhattan apt.--floor to ceiling volumes in every room plus uncatalogued piles.

The trick to the collection was simply requesting "review" copies from publishers, who were eager to feed his addiction in the hopes of snagging an undergrad course or three. One week he was on vacation and the department head happened to see the shocking sprawl of new deliveries, blew his top and put an end to the extreme bibliophilia.

Before my basement flooded I collected cookbooks and those household/medical books from about 1780 through the 1930s. I probably did have several thousand of them which I used for research. You are unlikely to find complete ones being digitized although some of the smaller ones are. One of the winter's delights was to compare what was in the different editions of the same book seeing how things changed and experimenting preparing food based on recipes that had no directions or regulated sizes.

We had a tenant with 3 children who was studying library science. He had bookshelves floor to ceiling down the hallway, on the long wall of an 11.5’x24’ living room, in the 10.5’ wide dining room. Probably more in the bedrooms. I think this is what caused the center of the house to sink further. We ended up putting 3 steel beams under the undersized and overlapping floor joists and jacked it up. (Hired a very knowledgeable company (TCHafford) to do the work.)

I'm a lifelong reader -- read every day of my life. For many years I purchased books, read them and then proudly displayed them on my bookshelves. After downsizing a couple of times, I finally had a conversation with myself about why I was holding onto all of those books that I knew I'd never reread. I came to the conclusion that books are written to be read, not displayed. So now I own a fraction of my former home library, and it continues to shrink. I try to avoid buying books and instead use my local library. When I do buy a book I pass it on to a friend or second-hand store so someone else can read it. That feels good to me.

One week he was on vacation and the department head happened to see
the shocking sprawl of new deliveries, blew his top and put an end to
the extreme bibliophilia.

I think his condition would be more accurately described as biblioholism and he would be a biblioholic.

I wonder if the OP will continue to post "shocking" comments for many replies.

Aw, I’m betting the op was Going waaay overboard to make the point of her love for the visual appeal of books in the home. That’s me, too. I’ve forever loved the look of bookshelves filled with mostly books, with a few bits of memorabilia or art objects. Now that I read mostly on my kindle and iPad, there are very few books that I buy and keep. But the books I’ve had since long before the digital age are there because a) I treasure them, b) they are first editions, c) I do like re-reading some , like my Barbara Pym collection, that are mostly unavailable now, and some, oh the shame, because they have lovely backs. On the very top shelves are colorful matching editions , ancient histories and the like , never to be read but look oh so nice up there. Also, I will confess that I was once a little judgmental of homes with nary a book in sight...before the internet. That was in my More foolish, small minded younger days. So, that’s my story on having and loving books in a home. But, hmmm, the op may just also be a troll trying to get our parties in a bunch.

Just the look I like

So, yes, I love books in a home, too.

First thread I read here in quite awhile and people taking offense...

I like to read physical books. I‘m in the book camp. I like bookshelves with mostly books but if someone wants to fill them to display things that’s fine. I dislike having extra stuff stored electronically. I do have a limit on books and I’m not buying anymore until I get through some of the ones I own. Book visually look inviting and homey to me. I am curious if future homes will eliminate bookshelves.