Question:
What is the single most widely-owned but unread title sitting on the bookshelves of educated Americans? (Bible doesn't count)
My guess:
Being and Nothingness
Aspiration is a bad thing now? If a person wants to look at my belongings and assume I have aspirations, she is more than welcome to.
I've become fairly ruthless about what books I'll keep, simply because I don't have the money to pay for them or the movers or the space (living in a studio of less than 200 sq ft concentrates the mind wonderfully). But if I were comfortably settled in a nice big house with a suitable income, of course I would accumulate a large number of unread books. (Even now, the proportion is fairly high, because I generally won't get rid of a book til I've read it.) You want to take advantage of sales and serendipitous used-bookstore finds, and you can never tell what you're going to want to read next. At 2 am, I need the next one ready. As indulgences of my leisure habits go, that strikes me as a fairly harmless one. (I don't buy books so that other people will read them. I make a point of never claiming even by omission to have read a book I haven't. But I would suggest that for a person to look at a book collection of any size and assume that the owner has read all or almost all of them betrays that that person himself is not particularly book-loving, or he'd *know* how the darned things pile up.)
Perhaps you'd like to criticize those who buy yarn when they don't have a project in mind for it yet? Yarn is much, much bulkier.
Aspiration is not intrinsically bad, but if your aspirations are indistinguishable from your achievements (as is the case with most book collections) a certain blurring occurs. I feel nearly as guilty about unread books on a shelf as I would about boasting lines on a C.V.
I take offense at being characterized as being not particularly book-loving. I have a list of books I plan to read, and if I come across one of them I will often pick up a copy. But my lack of a massive backlog means that I will quickly decide whether the book is worth reading; that is, I will start and then abandon it or I will be faced with the choice of that book or nothing and choose nothing. In such a case, I would dispose of the book, as it was not shelfworthy.
Being book-loving does not mean that one must be surrounded by unread books, or at least it need not be so if one loves what is inside books, and not the uninformed and expectant idea of what may be inside them.
I suppose it's the difference between those of us who believe pleasure is in the anticipation and those who believe it lies in the experience and subsequent savoring thereof. But a person who surrounded himself with unwatched films and uneaten delicacies is not, by most measures, a film buff or foodie. Why otherwise with books?
I suppose one wouldn't be considered a buff if that were the sole criteria against which one was being measured. I think it remarkably silly of someone to see a shelf of unread books and conclude that, "Aaahh they must not be among the erudite who savour true knowledge and experience."
I go through about 60 books a year, not counting those for school (when I was enroled). I will go through phases where I'm reading through all an authors books, but that generally doesn't last very long, or I take breaks. For other reading ideas it may come from the book I was reading in which an author had been mentioned or alluded; a long time classic I always meant to read; recommendations from a litblog;and from my bookstand of unread books. I like having my personal library where I know I can find whatever I want, whenever I want it. It's comforting knowing there's always an unread tome somewhere I can pick up if all else fails. And more practically, if I should ever go through a financial dry spell I won't have to depend on libraries. I am notoriously bad at meeting reading deadlines.
But then I not so "fundamentally introverted" that I wouldn't want my shelf stacked with some unread Banville and Borges, neither do I give much of a shit if the unread Sarah Waters would reflect poorly on me. Afterall I read romance and fantasy and no doubt that often cracked open "Menage" is going to attract more censure than the highly anticipated "On the Ideal Orator".
I guess I'm just cool with a little mystery. Can't say that I agree that either attitude or interpretation of the bookshelf by itself involves different magnitudes of love for books or intellect. I would need a bit more to go on than "If I only buy it when I want it I adore knowledge, If I buy it and don't read it right now I'm a pretentious ditz."
(Actually my library isn't real, it's just spines of classics stuck to wood. You know "Great Expectations", "Lolita", "War and Peace". No Austen though, everyone knows she's the reason we have "chick lit".)
i'm pretty shelfish when it comes to books: like many law students, i'd argue, the law school years of my life are marked by the books given by friends or family - usually at my request - that i really really really wanted to/planned on reading, but then understand securities regulation or whatever got in the way instead.
i don't consider it intellectual dishonesty to display them on my shelves now that i finally have time to crack the bindings. their time will come.
and even as they currently exist, they are of some value. like the copy of "what's the matter with kansas" my mom gave me when i returned from the kerry campaign - at which point i knew exactly what was wrong with kansas since i'd returned from kansas-esque west virginia. i'll likely never read the book, but it has a suitable story of its own to complement whatever is inside it - a kind of meaning it will never lose for me.
and eventually, what's inside will be a time-capsule of either proven or disproven ideas.
p.s. happy birthday.
But a person who surrounded himself with unwatched films and uneaten delicacies is not, by most measures, a film buff or foodie. Why otherwise with books?
Because you're making an assumption I consider pretty hard to justify: that a person accumulates unread books because she buys and doesn't read. Really, it's usually much simpler: a person accumulates unread book because she buys faster than she can read. If you're working full-time or have a broad variety of interests, that doesn't take a very high rate of book acquisition at all.
[Especially if any significant portion of your book purchases are chewier books--I can reread a Nero Wolfe novel in a couple hours, it will take me a few days to get through a moderately complex sociological text like I'm reading now (The Life and Death of Great American Cities), and I suspect it'll take me a good good while to finish the next book currently on the list, Underworld).]
There's no question in my mind that some folks build libraries because they think it confers status, just as I suppose there are some people who buy films but don't watch them for that purpose, or people who accumulate elaborate kitchenware but never even plan to cook because it looks good. I especially wouldn't be surprised to find that this is the case amongst the young and insecure at a place like Chicago. But your insistence that a book on the shelf carries the message of "I read this and liked it!" really bears little relationship to the reason most people collect books: because they think they might want to read them someday.
i'm with amber; every book on my shelves was read and enjoyed. if a book is bad, i throw it away (unless the book is significant for historical rather than literary purposes, in which case it goes with the non-fiction). bad books don't deserve a place on the same shelf as dostoevsky.
unread books sit on the floor; they don't make it to the shelf unless i approve the content.
A wile back there was an article that claimed that DVDs -- particularly "special editions" -- were taking over this function from the unread book as signifier.
"What is the single most widely-owned but unread title sitting on the bookshelves of educated Americans? (Bible doesn't count)"
War and Peace
I saw an episode of some English show where they go and visit the wives of famous english sportsmen at their palatial homes. Anyway one of them had a large library and every "book" in the library was a fake. It had the leather bound cover but was hollow.
Oh, yeah, you can find plenty of libraries in nice houses which were clearly purchased with an eye to providing uniform slabs of color on the walls. A little scary!
Ultimately, I think a person concerned about whether one's books give a false impression to others is as just as worried about her image as the putative Chicago freshman with his shelf ostentatiously full of Great Books is about his. I think that's a mistake in priorities. Books are for reading. I couldn't give two figs what someone else looking at my shelves thinks. My shelves are stocked for my own convenience, pleasure, and instruction, nothing else. And since I have yet to notice that my favorite books actually suffer any pain from being jumbled in with that book I bought two years ago that I probably would disagree with but haven't gotten around to reading yet, I don't feel the need to take their sensibilities into account.
I used to have a ton of books that I was never going to read, because I bought hoping to read one day and never got around to it. So I gave myself a $1 rule -- never buy a book that's more than $1 (before tax) -- and I _still_ acquired too many books, because of (1) used book racks/stores and (2) working at the Reason Foundation, where they would regularly give away the review copies of books that publishers would send us.
As I moved a few times, from L.A. to Boston, from Boston to Pasadena, from Pasadena to Washington, D.C., I gave away more and more of the books that I was obviously never going to read, even though it broke my heart. Did that make my library closer to the old friends ideal? Perhaps, but not _that_ much: I also gave away the books that I had already read, unless I really loved them or wanted to keep them around as a reference book. Also, I gave away my children's books (now I'm giving away the last of those to my nephews). And I rarely get new books, because I force myself to think of all those books at home I still want to read -- except in particular areas (sometimes in foreign languages or related to foreign cultures that I know, more often ancient & medieval)
In any event, though my library is a far cry from "old friends," I don't worry about whether it's deceptive to the outside world. I have books primarily because they reinforce my own personal image of the sort of person I am and want to be -- and their presence nudges me in that direction, because when I want to pick up a random book, I'll tend to pick from the sources at hand -- and not primarily because I want to make an impression on others.
I don't quibble with having a certain number of books for future reading, but when it's clear that a book will, due to its position in the queue, never be read, I think keeping it becomes questionable.
We all strive to have our personalities reflected in our surroundings, and to do so is not some shallow image-consciousness but a real desire for an honest portrayal of self. I don't think it's unusual to expect that the kinds of things people surround themselves with are indicative of the persona they wish to project. But how can the persona be accurate if the symbols they use to convey it are shrouded in mystery to the persona's creator?
I think of people who surround themselves with too many books for them to ever read in the same way that I think of oenophiles who own bottles of wine they'll never drink: with puzzlement, and a certain disdain for the profligacy of it all. If you never get to what's inside, the money was wasted.
In the wake of these comments, I think it appropriate to note that my post was inspired by public book collecting: that is, those who openly brag about their large book collections. If one's shelves are entirely inward-focused, much of the artifice falls away.
Years ago, a Geology Professor at Ohio State rated scientific journals based on their "Shelving Index", or how many inches of shelf space would be taken up per dollar of subscription cost. Sleves full of fancy looking scientific journals can also look impressive.
Most of the books I have I've read or have attempted to read multiple times. I make a lot of mistakes judging books and my likes.
I'm also a big believer in having books around for potential reference.
You guys sound like you read far, far more than I do. I read lots of poetry, and that doesn't translate into numbers of books a year, because it's just a few lines scrawled on paper.
I think I only read one book completely this year, so far: Francis Bacon's New Atlantis.
Antecedent to Rita's comment was Will's post, which urged people to keep their books even if it cost them in money, trouble and space, and "even if those books mostly just sit on one's shelf and remind one of the better things in life." This seems to me contrary to Amber's idea that books are not exempt from the rules that govern our purchase and ownership of other potentially enjoyable items like food, film and wine; they should be the better things in life that one is experiencing, not merely reminders thereof.
I have a couple of the books already mentioned in this thread sitting on my shelves, not yet read. My copy of War and Peace is a cheap paperback; of Underworld is a remaindered hardback. They are at my parents' house, where all read and unread books go to live, and where I almost never buy books. (The Waldenbooks in my hometown went out of business last year, and buying anything except paperback romances at WalMart and Hastings feels weird even when other stuff is available.) Like Sarah, I like to have books available, especially when I've gotten home at night and my parents have gone to bed but I'm not ready to sleep yet. It's nice to have them for anyone else in the house in need of reading material, too. I have more of Nick Hornby's books than I've finished reading yet, but I think of them as books my cousin might enjoy more than my fully read stack of Alice Hoffman. Then again, I'll buy DVDs in a similar way; I owned The Usual Suspects, albeit residing at home while I was in college and working, for four years before watching it in full. (I tried once while on pain meds and couldn't follow it.) I got a used copy cheaply and I knew that even if I ended up not liking it, I could pass it to someone who would. (And I did loan it to a friend for a trip before I ever saw it.) I can imagine that if I saw a red wine reputed to be a good one on sale, I'd pick it up even though I know I don't like reds; I'd save it for a night when I had guests and tuna steaks, or give it to my dad, or pop it open myself one night and discover that it was a red I actually liked. I'd do the same with food if it didn't mostly go bad.
We all have different notions about how much money and space is available to us. I have inherited a maternal tendency to think there's always enough money for a bargain, but don't like to carry all my possessions on my back. So people who pick up lots of cheap books don't surprise me as much as people who will spend "the extra 10 dollars and 20 minutes it takes to ship another box of seemingly frivolous books." I don't want to be owned by the physical manifestation of my books any more than I am by other material possessions.
I will object to:
to keep a mediocre book one has bought indicates a certain acceptance of mediocrity
I have kept many a mediocre book because it hasn't been worth the transactions cost of discarding it.
On the other hand, I have given away to friends multiple copies of some of my favorite books, such that Darwin's Dangerous Idea is not in my current library, even though I have purchased at least three copies.
wow, let me get this straight. in a country where 58% of people never read a book out of high school and the only growth in the publishing industry is coming from fundamentalist religious books like Left Behind, you're advocating buying and keeping a limited amount of books. wow that's brilliant. lets really put the nail in a coffin of book reading in America. who the f*&k cares what people have in a library as long as they have a library. if they read the books great. if not, so what. the more books the better. it shows an interest at least, in books. if someone has $10 to spend, i'd rather see them buy a Grisham book, stick it in their book shelf and forget about than waste it on Fast and The Furious IV. com'on people, get off your high horses and think logically. and as far as the comment, "But a shelf full of books that are unread and probably never will be read is a deceptive front," please. the opposite is more telling. a shelf full of erudite books nobody has ever heard of is the epitome of deception and pretense. in fact, if i came over to your house and saw this fabled shelf, i'd immediately suspect a lack of intellectual curiosity and adventure. but then I’d drink too much, fall asleep on your couch and forget everything I just thought. but that’s just me.
Are you drunk now?
some people might call it drunk, but i find a consistent .08 blood level maintains the creative process without hindering my ability to work, socialize, and carry on my normal daily routine. those same people, usually lawyers and their ilk, might also call my particular state of being alcoholism, i call it a gift. aren't you supposed to be clerking or lawyering or whatever the erudite do nowadays? instead of reading your comments? lawyers. egos the size of small cars i tell you.
I rather liked the scene in I Heart Huckabees where Jude Law's character--knowing that people are going through his trash--throws away well-worn copies of Kafka in order to look profound.
In thinking of my own library, my bulky, erudite-looking, hardcover, three-volume set of Gibbon has been sitting unread on my shelves for about six years now. I've started it once or twice, but always got distracted by other books and/or didn't feel up to the effort. Even though I honestly intend to read them some day, I've always felt a twang of dishonesty having them there...what if someone thinks I've read them??? What will they think of me???
An interesting question would be whether their guilt-inducing presence has made it more or less likely that I will start them again (and hopefully finish!).
My system for buying and keeping books is intensely personal and it works for me.
Prescribing what other people should have on their shelves seems about as wacky as telling people what they should be reading. Reminds me of those people I know (and I really do know such folk) who claim that everyone should pick one work (The Bible, a Platonic dialogue, A Confederacy of Dunces, whatever) and devote his or her life to its study. If it works for them, great, but I'd find it stultifying.
I have space. I have money. I hope that I have a lifetime of reading stretching out before me. I have shelves with thousands (and thousands) of books I've read (and reread) and hundreds (and perhaps I should add "and hundreds") of books that I haven't, or have started and put to the side unfinished when something else snatched my attention away. Some books I read in an hour. Others take me years from start to finish. I recommend and lend books to friends. I reread books. I’m given books as presents. I look up quotations or passages. I start new books in the wee hours of the morning. I write in my books and years later marvel at the archaeological evidence of the person I appear to have been. I grab unread books from my shelves for spontaneous trips.
My mania for the physical objects is deeply linked to my love of the content of books. I love the physicality and the nerd-chic aesthetic of a wall of books. I always have. Books turn a house into a home. They’re comforting. They’re my friends and family, my crushes and role models, my future and history, my aspirations and secrets. I look at my shelves and see the contents of my heart and mind reflected. I know what I’ve read and what I haven’t (usually, at least). Why should I care if someone else gets the wrong impression of who I am from looking at my shelves?
I didn't read all the other comments so maybe this one was previously made, but Walter Benjamin has a really great essay in Illuminations about book collecting & exactly why he purchases books that he may not necessarily ever read. It's an eloquent counter-argument, easy to read, short.
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