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Kathleen Janoski's avatar

If I go into someone's house and do not see any books, I want to go out screaming.

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Copernicus's avatar

We were discussing with our young person the strange phenomenon of one of the neighbor kids who seems capable only of playing video games or watching YouTube. If this kid can’t do those here at our house (say, our young person has used their screen time for the day), the kid leaves. We have plenty of other alternative entertainment.

Our young person remarked that they don’t think that kid’s family has any books in their house. Now, I would imagine they have *some,* *somewhere,* because owning absolutely none just is so unfathomable to me.

However, our young person has never seen any.

Meanwhile we have so many books that we need to buy several more large bookshelves. We probably could pass for an underfunded small town library with all of the books we own. 😆

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Based Florida Man's avatar

Parents got us a Britannica Encyclopedia set (in the 70's).

I read the whole set! Over the course of a year.

But these days books are old fashioned I guess.

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Amy's avatar

Me too! Childcraft, too.

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Jay Horton's avatar

My Sister told me last week that she still has the set my Dad bought us back in like 71 or 72. I could not believe that she has been keeping those all this time.

Later Jay

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Copernicus's avatar

Oh, man, if I could pick up a used encyclopedia set somewhere cheap…. Of course then we need a shelf for it. I’m serious. We have bankers boxes of books, and it’s even worse now that we homeschool, lol. I have the boxes labeled by historical era, or by which field of science they contain….

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CMCM's avatar

My parents got a set of World Book Encyclopedia in the 1950's while we were living in England, where my Air Force dad was stationed. My entertainment was to choose a volume and start reading it. I would choose a different one each day. I loved it, and learned so much from just that particular reading activity. I'm sure I read everything in all the volumes!

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JSR's avatar

I have a book buying problem lol

I tell my family that someday there may not be libraries so I will be ready

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CMCM's avatar

😆 My husband says my book habit is out of control. I'm always trying to figure out where to stash all my books. My many bookshelves are full.

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Emumundo's avatar

Books are important. Ebooks can just disappear at the whim of Amazon. I had a book disappear once when Amazon banned it and even scrubbed it from peoples libraries. Buy books. You’ll always have that knowledge.

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LamedVav disavows all vaxes.'s avatar

Books are better than gold.

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Lynn Faulkner's avatar

That's my excuse too.

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BBS's avatar

Just curious. Why do you say "young person" instead of son, daughter, niece, nephew, 17 year old neighbor etc.

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Copernicus's avatar

Someone somewhere suggested it as a term of respect, referencing the personhood of the son, daughter, etc. As an alternative to “child.” That’s all.

I have no problem with the other terms, although in this public forum I preserve as much anonymity as possible and so do not refer to our son/daughter with gendered terms, no to myself or my spouse with gendered terms. I assume you all can understand that. Given the age of our child, who is growing out of childhood, I sometimes refer to them as a young person. That’s all. Nothing complicated about it.

Same reason for not identifying the sex or age of the neighbor. Protect and respect privacy and anonymity.

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My Favorite Things's avatar

I just asked the same question before reading your post. It’s bizarre liberal speak.

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Copernicus's avatar

How is it liberal speak? Genuinely curious.

I don’t even use it all the time.

Someone somewhere suggested it as a term of respect, referencing the personhood of the son, daughter, etc. As an alternative to “child.” That’s all.

I have no problem with the other terms, although in this public forum I preserve as much anonymity as possible and so do not refer to our son/daughter with gendered terms, no to myself or my spouse with gendered terms. I assume you all can understand that. Given the age of our child, who is growing out of childhood, I sometimes refer to them as a young person. That’s all. Nothing complicated about it.

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MayBella82's avatar

I agree that is liberal speak.... it reminds me of preferred pronouns. I personally thinks it de-values the person you are talking about. It also distracts from what you are trying to say... because it sounds so weird.

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My Favorite Things's avatar

Paranoid much? It’s liberal speak. You could have said son, daughter, niece, nephew, cousin etc. and not given your identity away. A few years ago, that’s what you would have said son or daughter.

Now I know you have at least one child. So what? Millions of people have children. I have two children. Please tell me who I am with only that information.

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CMCM's avatar

When my daughter was 5 in 1975, I remember going to a used book store and getting her an armload of books to read (she already liked to read at 5!). When I was paying for the books, the woman who was doing the transaction commented how rare it was for moms to come in to buy books for their children. She said women usually bought romance novels, but rarely a book for the children who were there with them. I grew up without TV, and when our kids were young we didn't have one either. By choice. We were all voracious readers, which has continued to this day with not only me, but also my three siblings.

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Copernicus's avatar

Most of the books I buy are for our kiddo. Not for myself. 😆

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Roman S Shapoval's avatar

Thanks for sharing that Copernicus. Hey, you never know! You just may have to bail us all out and become that library when no one knows anything anymore.

Ever see the movie The Book of Eli?

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My Favorite Things's avatar

Is your “young person” gender neutral? Why can’t you say son or daughter? Asking for a friend.

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Copernicus's avatar

It’s called protecting their privacy and our family’s anonymity.

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Anecdotal Anonymous's avatar

Worked out of the country for quite a while, all involved spoke very general about home relationships. Until you understand targeting and the way it works, allow the unenlightened to live the binary dream. The best security practices are the ones you use, not the ones that are odd to others...speaking for a friend.

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CStone's avatar

You would love my house, then. Almost wall-to-wall books. Books in bookcases. Books on tables. Books, usually on the kitchen table.

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Lynn Faulkner's avatar

Friend: "You have a book problem."

Me: "Storage! I have a book storage problem."

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MayBella82's avatar

lol... I am going to use this one. I have books all over the place.

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rolandttg's avatar

My now deceased best friend was an every day dope smoking (even at work) bolshevik. I asked him one time why he considered us friends, as one Halloween party he hosted I went as Reagan . He said "you are the only friends I have who read books. He was a huge war between the states reader, and WWII. I have heard that from others. Books bolshevik pundits and politicians write don't sell because their faithful don't read.

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Becky's avatar

Books! Five years ago I received an email from a gentleman who was starting a local chapter of the G.K. Chesterton society. As a fan of Chesterton, I had joined the national organization, and they had given this gentleman their mailing list for our zip codes. I attended the first meeting and all I can say is that leaving that first meeting, I knew I had found my tribe. Overthinkers willing to discuss ideas of all sorts, yet remain curious, cordial and mirthful. We read and discuss Chesterton’s books. It took us almost a year to get through “What’s Wrong with the World.” No one ever stalks out or shouts over someone else, but rather everyone remains attentive and thoughtful. It’s a haven of sanity. GKC himself said, "The success of argument is to disagree to agree. The failure of argument is to agree to disagree.”

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MayBella82's avatar

Love this... I would love a group like this. His books are so thought provoking and I love going down the rabbit holes too!

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Becky's avatar

Perhaps there is a chapter near you. If not, you can start one!

https://www.chesterton.org/local-societies/

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Agent 1-4-9's avatar

We have over two thousand books, with a bookshelf in every room except the dining room. 😁

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Lynn Faulkner's avatar

I lived on a sailboat for years and my then husband would complain because any time he had to work on something, he'd have to first remove bags of sealed up books.

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Dee's avatar

You wouldn’t see any books in my house because the hard copies are in my private home office, not visible from the doorway (I’m mostly minimalist in the common areas). But you might spy one of my three kindles.

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Roger Beal's avatar

Remember the film, "Fahrenheit 451"?

At what temperature does a Kindle ignite? (Asking for the future fascicts).

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CMCM's avatar

As a lifelong book lover, I just don't like reading on Kindle or a tablet. I gave it a try with a few books when it first came out, but I quickly abandoned it. Give me a book every time!

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SadieJay's avatar

Me too!!! And, sometimes they do have books and the spines are to the wall. Arrrrrgh!!

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AB's avatar

For decoration. I don’t get it. It’s the most ridiculous thing

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My Favorite Things's avatar

I use books as decorations. I collect antique books and they’re beautiful. However, I also read them. I think more people should read antique books like “The World’s Greatest Orations.” George Washington in his farewell speech predicted everything that’s happening in our country right now.

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Copernicus's avatar

But, the spines are the interesting parts…

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Copernicus's avatar

Wha????!!!

How does that even make any sense. They obviously do not read them.

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SadieJay's avatar

Exactly. I like the home reno shows, but when they build a beautiful library room with so many book shelves and even a ladder and place all the books with the spines in, it just killed me.

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Susan Clack's avatar

Perhaps they’re afraid some sharp-eyed viewer will be able to read the titles and find offense at the books that were put on the shelf...or else the authors might receive an unintended endorsement, getting an HGTV sales bump or something...don’t we see people on various shows who have to put tape over their clothing’s corporate logos so as to avoid paying a royalty or whatever it might be? 🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️I dunno...

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Copernicus's avatar

Someone did that?

That is downright bizarre. Why have a library???????

Maybe for the show, if it was my library, and I didn’t want the world seeing all of my shelves full of dissident literature…. 😆 But I would just leave them empty and shelve my books later because who wants to turn them all back around. Except I guess maybe if they paid me enough money for my renovation to be on TV. Lol.

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SadieJay's avatar

It would have been a beautiful room with all the books put out the right way. All show no go. Stupid is as stupid does. Dissident literature! Right on baby. See you in the gulag. Haha. Funny? Not funny? Ugh!

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JenMcK's avatar

I mentioned that to my son as bizarre and he brought up that there might be copyright issues with them being on tv? So easier to turn the books around to show how the library would be set up and the books get turned back around later?

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Bandit's avatar

How ugly. Also would make it hard to remove the books from the shelves for reading. ☹

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CH's avatar

I guess they like the way it looked when they saw it on HGTV. 🤦‍♀️

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Amy's avatar

My personal pet peeve is when books are color coordinated. I was a cataloging librarian for 25 years.

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Kathleen Janoski's avatar

That's when you know the books are just for show, not reading.

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Roman S Shapoval's avatar

hahahahahaah! Does People magazine count?

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Susan Stephens's avatar

Confession. Back in the day I subscribed to. Liked the personal stories of non-celebrities; backstories of crime stories, & yes, even celebrity ones. Liked letters to editor. Then the mag started changing.... when Ellen & her “bride” appeared one cover. End of People mag for me. Never bought or read another copy.

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PamelaZelie's avatar

“Many people, myself among them, feel better at the mere sight of a book.”

Jane Smiley

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WP William's avatar

I get ill with seeing OBAMA books, OPRAH, CLINTON, CLAPPER, all sort of B.S. or the converse; GW Bush President of Faith, Trump and Jesus, Boebert's Guide to Christian Mothering. C'mon man what a waste of paper and ink! Talk about Books that SHOULD be Banned

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Lynn Faulkner's avatar

Unless it's the library at the retirement center where I live, that contains endless rows of cheesy romances.

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Heterodox Introvert's avatar

I have been in a couple of those houses. It's jarring, and frightening.

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Fla Mom's avatar

Ours are mostly in our home library, with floor-to-ceiling shelves, not in the living areas. (And our books are shelved spines out, of course; it's a *library,* so we can see and use the books.)

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MaryAnn's avatar

My place is small so only a few essential books (bibles) but my e-reader is chock full! 😊

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