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Embarassing books?
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shabbatiscoming




 
 
    
 

Post Tue, May 19 2009, 1:53 am
Clarissa wrote:
I love my books. My bookshelves are my favorite place in the house. I also love perusing other peoples' bookshelves. What I hate is when my wealthy friends who used decorators have no books in view, because the decorator decided they're not aesthetically pleasing.

I can't think of anything I'd be embarrassed about.
im the same. if I walk into a house with no book shelves, I dont know, I get a very different vibe than one I would walk into with books for all to see. I love books and would have no other way than to put them all right in my living room.
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Clarissa




 
 
    
 

Post Tue, May 19 2009, 8:44 am
mama-star wrote:
I keep "spiritual midwifery" in my bedroom. wouldn't want anyone to see the crazy nekkid hippies having babies... LOL
I had a friend who had a book (different one) filled with pictures of nekkid hippies having babies, and every time I was at her house I would grab it and they couldn't get it away from me. Women squatting down over newspapers, acting like they were pausing in their morning chores to push out a baby before going back to the kitchen to knead some bread or grow some sprouts. I was fascinated. It also inspired my totally medicated hospital birth. Every time I was over there for dinner, I'd pull it off the shelf and ruin the dinner conversation by saying things like, "Are they really eating placenta stew?" So maybe it's better to keep it elsewhere.
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Ruchel




 
 
    
 

Post Tue, May 19 2009, 8:52 am
When I was 12 or so I went at a friend, and saw no book at all. I was very shocked because I had never seen a Jewish home without some of the classics at least...
Much later I realized they were very very nouveau rich and from a very uneducated background, so... no books. But I remember how surprised I was, and how I searched for the books...
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Raisin




 
 
    
 

Post Tue, May 19 2009, 8:52 am
Clarissa wrote:
mama-star wrote:
I keep "spiritual midwifery" in my bedroom. wouldn't want anyone to see the crazy nekkid hippies having babies... LOL
I had a friend who had a book (different one) filled with pictures of nekkid hippies having babies, and every time I was at her house I would grab it and they couldn't get it away from me. Women squatting down over newspapers, acting like they were pausing in their morning chores to push out a baby before going back to the kitchen to knead some bread or grow some sprouts. I was fascinated. It also inspired my totally medicated hospital birth. Every time I was over there for dinner, I'd pull it off the shelf and ruin the dinner conversation by saying things like, "Are they really eating placenta stew?" So maybe it's better to keep it elsewhere.


I keep far far away from videos and pictures of people having babies. they are far more scary then actually going through it yourself.
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bodybalance




 
 
    
 

Post Tue, May 19 2009, 9:09 am
I have my Agatha Christie books proudly on display! As well as my husband's Asimovs.
I am proud of them and the countless hours of pleasure they have given us. Smile
My books on intimacy and relationships are on the shelves ... for people's viewing pleasure or displeasure... so that they can learn from them if they choose. I am not embarrassed of them..

There are some books that are just plain dumb on my shelf and anyone is invited to come take them...
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louche




 
 
    
 

Post Tue, May 19 2009, 9:16 am
shosh wrote:
Well, I guess I'd better go burn my copies of Lady Chatterley's Lover and the Well of Loneliness. Wink


Naaah....hide 'em under your mattress.
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louche




 
 
    
 

Post Tue, May 19 2009, 9:39 am
shabbatiscoming wrote:
if I walk into a house with no book shelves, I dont know, I get a very different vibe than one I would walk into with books for all to see. .


I know what you mean. A Jewish household is almost by definition overflowing with books--even secular households overflow with secular books. We are, after all, "The People of the Book." Once I was a guest in a very rich household that had that classic artful arrangement of disheveled just-so, antique leather-bound tomes on a mostly empty bookshelf. I didn't even bother picking any of them up, both because I was afraid to disturb the phony-casual arrangement and because there was no point. The books were clearly there for artistic purposes only and their content was irrelevant.

Most Jewish households also have a visible collection of Judaica-- even secular households will have at least grandma's menorah or a wedding-gift seder plate or a wall plaque that was a souvenir of someone's trip to Israel in 1967. This rich household had none of that showing, though I'm sure they had somewhere a huge closet full of leichter and kiddush cups and seder plates and menorahs.

It was a pretty sterile environment--more like a hotel than a home. The decor was a testament to their wealth and their decorator's taste, but gave hardly any clue to who they were as people.

That being said--it's not necessary to let it all hang out. One is entitled to keep certain things out of the public eye.
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Twoisacharm




 
 
    
 

Post Tue, May 19 2009, 10:09 am
I love that my books are out - they tend to surprise ppl LOL

and I love re-reading the gr8 ones!!!! its like having a personal library with the books that are bound to make me happy Wink
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chavs




 
 
    
 

Post Tue, May 19 2009, 11:17 am
I have no idea who Nora Roberts is but my opinion about this is that if I have no issue with H-shem seeing them why should I be uncomfortable with others seeing them.
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cassandra




 
 
    
 

Post Tue, May 19 2009, 11:29 am
Clarissa wrote:
I love my books. My bookshelves are my favorite place in the house. I also love perusing other peoples' bookshelves. What I hate is when my wealthy friends who used decorators have no books in view, because the decorator decided they're not aesthetically pleasing.

I can't think of anything I'd be embarrassed about.


I can't imagine anything more aesthetically pleasing than books. I have books everywhere.

I have 4 or 5 books that I keep in my nightstand, everything else is out. Books that talk about s-x from a halachic or philosophical or historical standpoint are out, the more, er, technical ones are put away.
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gryp




 
 
    
 

Post Tue, May 19 2009, 11:40 am
I like books too, but not all. Some of them out there don't deserve publication. (Weird word, never thought about that one.)

Anyway, I only have a small bookcase in my lr/dr. The rest of the books are in the back room where there's room for them.
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ruthla




 
 
    
 

Post Fri, Jun 26 2009, 2:50 pm
There aren't any books I own that I'm embarrassed to own. Either it's innapropriate and I'm not going to read it, it's mildy innapropriate and I didn't know it until I read the library copy (and don't plan to own it), or it's a perfectly legitimate book and it's on the bookshelf.
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Maya




 
 
    
 

Post Fri, Jun 26 2009, 3:09 pm
This thread just made me realize that all our books are out of sight.

We put all the seforim (a good hundred or more) in a closet and wanted to get glass doors. But the doors we ordered didn't fit, and we never got around to changing them.

All other books are kept on a shelf in one of my huge storage closets right off the kitchen.
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bbmom




 
 
    
 

Post Fri, Jun 26 2009, 5:56 pm
The only decorations we have in our house are 6 Ikea bookcases stuffed with sifrei kodesh, minus 2 shelves - 1 for albums/teaching books and 1 for cookbooks.

All of our other books - Jewish and secular (novels and reference) are in boxes. DH's dream is to have a big house where every inch of wall space is taken up by books. I told him as long as he leaves me a couple of inches for a picture or two I'm fine with that.

(I just counted the bookcases in my parents' house from memory - off the top of my head there are 32, and there are probably enough books to fill up another 10-15).
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Chani




 
 
    
 

Post Fri, Jun 26 2009, 8:14 pm
we have books overflowing everywhere - twenty two bookcases in the house (jammed full double-deep for the most part). I have to admit that certain books - particularly secular fiction - I tend not to keep in public view although I don't freak out if some manage to make their way into the living room/den etc. (I actually usually give these away a box at a time to the local hospital). I love the Kindle, but there's just something about holding a book...
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Fox




 
 
    
 

Post Fri, Jun 26 2009, 8:19 pm
B"H, we have our dining room lined with 9 foot bookshelves stuffed with seforim. But I've found the solution for non-Judaic books that I don't want anyone pawing through: I transfer them from my Kindle to an SD card and put it in my dresser. Yet another reason to love the Kindle!
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sequoia




 
 
    
 

Post Sun, Jun 28 2009, 8:46 pm
I think as long as you don't have kids it's a non-issue.

When you do... I've thought about this. I do have a lot of books (Nabokov, Orwell, Eugenides) that I would NOT want kids or teens looking at. I guess one can keep them in the closet or wardrobe in one's bedroom.

But your fellow adults judging you because you have fiction or poetry or philosophy or other "secular" books in your house? Very strange.
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Tova




 
 
    
 

Post Sun, Jun 28 2009, 10:05 pm
I love how our sefarim/books are organized.

My husband wanted to have sefarim in all the rooms (besides kitchen and bathroom) on the main level of our house, so we spread the bookcases out as follows:

-Living room - siddurim, tehillim, machzorim, sefarim on tefilla, tanach, mikraos gedolos, sefarim on chumash and nach

-Dining room - Shas, Arba Turim, other sefarim on gemara that he is currently using

-Den - bookcase with English Judaica, bookcase with halacha sefarim, etc.

Everything is really organized this way. When we have company over, when giving the tour of the house we also give a tutorial on how the sefarim/books are arranged!

I don't think I own secular fiction (whatever I read is from the library), but any secular non-fiction is in the basement on some built-in bookshelves that we have.
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Besiyata Dishmaya




 
 
    
 

Post Wed, Jul 01 2009, 4:20 pm
Tova wrote:
I love how our sefarim/books are organized.

My husband wanted to have sefarim in all the rooms (besides kitchen and bathroom) on the main level of our house, so we spread the bookcases out as follows:

-Living room - siddurim, tehillim, machzorim, sefarim on tefilla, tanach, mikraos gedolos, sefarim on chumash and nach

-Dining room - Shas, Arba Turim, other sefarim on gemara that he is currently using

-Den - bookcase with English Judaica, bookcase with halacha sefarim, etc.

Everything is really organized this way. When we have company over, when giving the tour of the house we also give a tutorial on how the sefarim/books are arranged!

I don't think I own secular fiction (whatever I read is from the library), but any secular non-fiction is in the basement on some built-in bookshelves that we have.

If the seforim are so organized and each sefer has its set place on the shelves, do you also have a computerized list of the seforim with id numbers and in which room and shelf they belong? I'm not trying to make fun. That's what we have - a list of seforim (without ids) and on what shelf they belong. They're all in one huge bookcase in the dining room.
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Tova




 
 
    
 

Post Wed, Jul 01 2009, 4:28 pm
Nope, MeThinks, no ID system!

But we always know what bookcase any given sefer/book can be found.

Also I realized I mis-spoke - I do in fact own @ half a dozen secular fiction books.
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