Most of us go into someone else's home armed with our best manners, I assume. Especially if we are there for business, to repair something or to deliver or whatever. Am I wrong in this
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We have about 100 shelf feet of books, as a result of ruthless trimming when we moved into a one-bedroom apartment. C's parents used to tell her that we needed to get rid of them, because they were a fire hazard! She once told me that they had said we ought to get rid of my Encyclopaedia Britannica, in particular, because it was ten or twenty years old and couldn't have any useful information; fortunately they didn't say that to me, as I might have been shocked into rudeness.
Of course C and I comment to each other if we've visited a house without books visibly displayed on bookshelves. But we wait till we get home. . . .
And yes, books do breed, everyone knows that. People who own books get more books; sometimes they even get additional copies of the same book.
Oh good Lord, the comment on EB would probably have shocked me into much worse than rudeness.
Old books - and especially old encyclopedias - are a storehouse of views-of-the-world-as-it-looked-*then*. I still own my 1973 edition of Britannica. (The article on Israel includes a photo of Bedouins in the Israeli Sinai.)
Print media is obsolete; that is its greatest value. It cannot be retracted or redacted; it is an eternal screenshot of the minds that wrote it. It is the words of people living in our past, reflecting on their past as it appeared to them in their present. It is absolutely irreplaceable.
People who respond to books like that are so bizarre. I'm highly tempted to try one of your responses next time, though.
Once I had someone come in to give me a moving estimate, and as soon as she saw the bookshelves full of books, she kept saying, "Oh, those are going to be so expensive to move!" Finally I said politely, "I'm not planning to leave them behind, so please just include them in the estimate."
Our movers, on the other hand, said our books would be easy. Boxes. Regular shape. Easy to stack. What astonished them was how little furniture we had (apart from bookcases).
The service persons I've had in my house, if they felt moved to comment at all, have generally commented in a spirit of gleeful delight - like even if they don't read much, they're overawed by the spectacle of my house (which is nearly bursting at the seams with books, tbf), and genuinely happy about it / for me. The ones who read are just openly and amazedly jealous :D.
Never thought before about how lucky that makes me, not to have to deal with such disdain.
Yep, say what you might about Co Springs otherwise, the culture of the book is definitely strong here! (As is the culture of not saying snooty things about other people's stuff, for that matter :D)
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Of course C and I comment to each other if we've visited a house without books visibly displayed on bookshelves. But we wait till we get home. . . .
And yes, books do breed, everyone knows that. People who own books get more books; sometimes they even get additional copies of the same book.
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Old books - and especially old encyclopedias - are a storehouse of views-of-the-world-as-it-looked-*then*. I still own my 1973 edition of Britannica. (The article on Israel includes a photo of Bedouins in the Israeli Sinai.)
Print media is obsolete; that is its greatest value. It cannot be retracted or redacted; it is an eternal screenshot of the minds that wrote it. It is the words of people living in our past, reflecting on their past as it appeared to them in their present. It is absolutely irreplaceable.
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The 1912 Britannica is a real treasure.
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Once I had someone come in to give me a moving estimate, and as soon as she saw the bookshelves full of books, she kept saying, "Oh, those are going to be so expensive to move!" Finally I said politely, "I'm not planning to leave them behind, so please just include them in the estimate."
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The service persons I've had in my house, if they felt moved to comment at all, have generally commented in a spirit of gleeful delight - like even if they don't read much, they're overawed by the spectacle of my house (which is nearly bursting at the seams with books, tbf), and genuinely happy about it / for me. The ones who read are just openly and amazedly jealous :D.
Never thought before about how lucky that makes me, not to have to deal with such disdain.
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