Bookshelf Etiquette

Because I'm lazy and have no desire to trawl the internet for interesting articles, I pinch them from other blogs instead. I'm at least kind enough to give credit where it's due, so thanks to Chris from Book-a-Rama for the following entertaining links.

So, I've been reading some articles concerning 'bookshelf etiquette'. The original article was posted in a Time blog by Matt Selman and be found here. He raises some interesting points and rules that he has devised, such as: 'It is unacceptable to display any book in a public space of your home if you have not read it.'

Thankfully I don't agree with this or I would have quite a lot of empty shelves and literally hundreds of books hidden away, never to be seen by the public or gazed upon with fondness by myself. I'm a compulsive book-buyer and buy books way faster than I can read them (so far this year I've read 16 books and bought 41 more - that means for every book I read, I add at least 2.5 more to my TBR pile).

I don't think there's any problem displaying books on your shelves that you've yet to read, although it would be a different story if the you had no intention of ever reading them (like if you're so stupid you buy books just to try to make yourself look smart/well-read, in which you'll be found out sooner or later).

I fully intend to read all of my books one day and I love sitting and looking at them all - thinking of the wondrous tales therein that I've yet to discover (yes I'm aware that I sound like a nutter). One day soon I'll be buying a place of my own and once I have a mortgage I won't be able to go out and buy as many books as I do now. So the way I see it is that I'm stockpiling reading material for future years. No reading drought for me!

There's a couple of other excellent blog entries regarding the original blog posting, which can be found here and here. The comments on both are very interesting as well.

It's nice to know I'm not the only person who has a problem with buying a lot of books :)