Folding Star's Lost Within the Pages: Saturday Book Chat

In our salute to reading, we note Folding Star's book chat from March 26, 2005.

Lost Within the Pages: Saturday Book Chat XI

As you probably know already, I haven't been feeling well this week. As a result, I've only managed to get about halfway through the new Elizabeth George novel, With No One As Witness, so far. But I'm happy to note that it's up to her usual standards and I'm enjoying it a great deal.

I'm also waiting for my library to process their copies of Saturday by Ian McEwan. I'm at number one on the hold list, so as soon as they're ready to be checked out, I'll be reading it!

As I noted earlier, my plans to do a post on the best in political non fiction in the past four years were scuttled by the way my week has turned out. It's still in the cards, but I can't say at this point, with my school schedule about to get much heavier, when it will be up.

Having planned to do a vastly different Book Chat, I sat down this afternoon and wondered what I'd talk about. A quick glance around the room answered my question.

You can tell so much about a person simply by browsing through the titles on their bookshelves. The first thing I do when I go to someone's home for the first time is look, even if it's just out of the corner of my eye, for a bookcase.

The books that someone not only reads, but chooses to keep as their own are a glimpse into their entire personality. I love it when I think I have someone pegged pretty closely and then a glance at their bookshelves opens my eyes to a whole different aspect of who they are.

I'm thinking of this because I've been house sitting for friends all week long and their bookcase is here in their computer room, right next to the computer desk. Every time I sit down to check my email or the blogs, my eyes drift over and run across the titles.

I know these two friends very well, so most of what I see comes as no surprise and fits in perfectly with who I know them to be: a handful of music books, mostly on female artists; several books on forensic science, crime, and serial killers; various science textbooks; the entire Harry Potter collection; books on animals; a handful of crime novels, including several by Thomas Harris; what looks to be nearly every book ever written by V.C. Andrews, each copy worn and obviously much read; a biography of Marilyn Monroe; a photograph book on Marlene Dietrich.

All of this, in one way or another, fits in perfectly with my concept of one or both of the friends who live in this house. There are, though, a few surprises. For instance, two poetry collections, Nathaniel Hawthorne's The House of the Seven Gables and a book of Nostradamus' prophecies give me cause to say "Huh?" I can't really picture either of my friends engaged in reading these books.

This is what I'm talking about. It's like an almost illicit peek into someone else's mind, a glimpse of their character that they don't even realize they're putting on display.

It's always amusing to look at someone's books and pretend you know nothing about them, see what insight you'd take away just from what is there on the shelves if you were strangers.

It also makes me wonder what my own books would say about me if they came under inspection! First of all, someone would have to be in my overly crowded bedroom to see them to begin with. I've always been a bit hesitant to spread my books out too far, there's a comfort in going to sleep at night surrounded by them.

No doubt they'd quickly conclude that fiction is my true love, but that I also have a penchant for politics and sociology. But which books would stand out and cause surprise among those who think they know me? It's impossible to say, though I have a few ideas.

For instance, I think most would be truly shocked to discover the book Growing Up Brady in my collection! Yes, the book by Barry 'Greg Brady' Williams of The Brady Bunch. I've probably even shocked you by revealing this about myself.

Someone might no doubt conclude that I had some secret love for the old show, that perhaps I was hooked on the reruns, that I found something comforting and appealing in the simple, sunny Brady lifestyle. That perhaps I even harbored some sort of secret crush on Barry Williams.

The different possibilities of what my possession of the book could say about me are probably endless.

The truth is probably far less interesting than anything that could be guessed: I did like the Brady Bunch reruns when I was a kid, and I bought the book when I was young and read it two or three times. I wasn't enthralled so much at the behind the scenes look at the show as I was with the behind the scenes look at a child actor. At the time, I was going through a phase where I desperately wanted to be a movie star, as so many kids do.

I keep the book today not because I ever plan to read it again, but because it reminds me so strongly of that period of my life and of my dreams at that time.

I'm sure there are other books in my collection that would surprise people who know me and lead to all sorts of amusing speculation.

My point, really, is that the books we surround ourselves with tell stories beyond just the ones within the covers. They tell stories about us, about who we are. We keep each of them for a reason. If you read a book and hate everything about it, you're not likely to just put it back on your bookshelves afterwards, are you?

You keep a book because it's meant something to you.

Some people, like my parents, don't collect many books. My parents have their favorite used bookstore, a place that deals exclusively in paperbacks, where they buy their books, read them, and then trade them in towards more. Even so, my father has a collection of favorite authors whose books he's collected and kept, because they mean something to him.

Of course, sometimes someone's bookshelves may be mere window dressing. The books upon the shelves may mean nothing at all to their possessor, or at least not in the sense that books usually mean something to readers. I had a roommate like this. When we first began sharing a place, I was impressed that my roommate had a decent sized collection of books, mostly on rock music and Russia. It was only over time that I came to realize that he bought the books out of a genuine interest in the subject, but never got around to actually reading any of them.

Bookcases, like people themselves, can be misleading in what they tell you.

But the next time you visit a friend and they have their bookshelves out where you can see them without snooping around, take a look. See what surprises you, see what they have to say about your friend.

Who knows, maybe they'll notice your interest and it will kick off a great discussion on books.

In the meantime, happy reading everyone.