Why even have a bookshelf...

Lauren's a psychopath.

59

The “J” in “J & L(auren)” is MISERABLE

12
- It's a Jason isn't it? He seems happy on the outside. He has a good job, people think he's lucky having a probably pretty wife and the dinner parties are great in a home that's so neutral no-one can dislike the decor.
  
  But he's thinking of ending it. It's just that every time he is about to have enough free time to drown himself or something he gets a text from Lauren that needs answering immediately.
  
  She wouldn't like the mess anyway, he ponders, it wouldn't be very neutral.
  
  19

You just know those books aren't there to be read.

43

well obviously they're there to keep the look neutral, it says so right there

21

Only thing missing is a "live laugh love" sign

39

If it were there, it would be turned around so the text is facing the wall

13
- evoL hguaL eviL
  
  17

I bet all the books are about homeopathy and essential oils.

37

Did you know you can buy books with blank pages? You can even choose the severity of the discoloration and degree of mottling of the pages. Utter psychopaths.

20
- Those are some of the best books. They can take a while to fill up, though.
  
  9

Why? What do you do with your books? read them? Fuckin' nerd.

31

wait, i thought they were for levelling tables and chairs?

13
- That's the great thing about books! They're useful in many ways!
  
  6
wait, i thought they were for levelling tables and chairs?

I use mine to weigh down things I glue. It's this not how books work?

4
Cohen was shocked. 'Bonfires of books?' 'Yes. Horrible, isn't it?' 'Right,' said Cohen. He thought it was appalling. Someone who spent his life living rough under the sky knew the value of a good thick book, which ought to outlast at least a season of cooking fires if you were careful how you tore the pages out. Many a life had been saved on a snowy night by a handful of sodden kindling and a really dry book. If you felt like a smoke and couldn't find a pipe, a book was your man every time. Cohen realised people wrote things in books. It had always seemed to him to be a frivolous waste of paper.

Terry Pratchett, The Light Fantastic
1

Normally I'm against the death penalty, but I'll make an exception for Lauren

16

Man, fuck Lauren and fuck the parents who raised her to do that to books.

16

Fuck the grandparents too

6
I had heard books having titles on their spine is relatively recent. Partially due to books being stored like they are here, to prevent the pages from rotting. Allegedly titles started to be printed on spines with Alice in Wonderland, at least for mass-produced books.

I'm having trouble coming up with a source, Wikipedia mentions early books not having titles on the spine, but doesn't mention storage or when this practice changed. Or a source. That's as far as I was able to track any of this down.

All this to say, there might be prior precedent for this. Which for me moves her behavior (even if that's not her stated reason) towards eccentric, rather than book-hating.

1
- That definitely isn't true. My father collected antiquarian books for a while and there are plenty of books from the 18th century that have titles on their spines.
  
  3
- The practice more-or-less coincided with the invention of the printing press. Books became cheap and abundant, so special care was less important.
  
  2

KEEP THE LOOK NEUTRAL

12

My daughter does this, has done since she was a little girl. Once, I asked her why - she just shrugged and said she preferred it that way, no specific reason.

Fair enough, I thought. Her books, her shelves, no one was getting harmed by it - and I moved on.

Why is everyone getting so butt hurt in this thread about it?

10

I guess because it's using books solely as a decorative piece and shows there is no interest or intent to ever read them again.

7
- I keep the books I read for sentimental reasons and because usually they have notes in them. But I definitely do not look into them on a regular basis. Even the books that I do reread or look something up in I do this maybe 2-3 times a year. Those are the frequent use books. Most I "use" less often. Now, if I open a book once a year or less I can also put it away in a box, the basement, or hide it somewhere in the closet. It does not need to be easily accessible. I also have raclette that I use once a year and it is also crammed in the back of a closet because I need other things to be quickly and easily accessible. If anything, it is me who uses the books as decoration as I keep them on display in a bookshelf - not because it shows my intent or interest to reread them. This is to say that while it looks impractical in the first glance, it doesn't mean the books are less used or used more often. The way they are stored doesn't need to mean anything. You can also find some joy in finding the right book by just remembering its thickness or size or color or where it is stored because you actually do pull it out so often. I even remember having this kind of "ha, gotcha, you thought I wouldn't find you immediately, huh, you're so wrong kiddo" feeling when I pulled out a favorite book from a bookpile when I couldn't see the covers.
  
  3
Because she is objectively wrong. :)

5
well I mean it makes it much more difficult to tell what each book is lol, it's just very impractical for if you end up wanting to find a certain book

5

I must be stupid because I can’t even figure out what it means to stack books back to front.

10

You're not stupid.

I think they mean with the spine facing the wall instead of outwards.

16
- Ah ok. Gross.
  
  14
the side with the title on it is facing the wall, so that they all look roughly the same color when viewed from the front. And now you can't tell which book is which.

7
- Thanks, I think my brain was just having a moment.
  
  3

Poor J can’t find his copy of The Hobbit!

8

J is probably imaginary

6
What he doesn't know is the Lauren put it in the recycling 5 weeks ago. His ghost will forever wander the house turning a book around, sighing and moving on to the next one. Lauren is quietly pleased about it as J is now very neutral, the all that ground glass in his Buddha bowls was worth the effort.

4
It's got his starch in it. He needs it to calm down from the latest Lauren redecoration fiasco.

He has only just got over all the throw pillows covering every piece of furniture.

2

I love reading. I read a lot. And I rarely open a paper book. So perhaps Lauren also has an e-reader, and keeps the books there because she inherited them. Or maybe she likes the smell of old books as it reminds her of her grandparents house where she used to spend her summers. Or it may be that she likes the feel of moving her fingers through all those pages. It brings back old memories of her librarian mother who passed away when she was just a child. Or...

The point being, why the hate? So here's a different take. Perhaps Lauren has a good reason to have the books like that.

7

And on the top shelf she even stacked the books in addition. Utter madness.

6

That looks likea bunch of wooden blocks

5

Oh such a great idea! It's like my idea for a square wheel, they look much tidier stacked up.

3

The amount of terrible people in this thread is sad. You are much worse than Lauren.

1

Fuck, I actually like how it looks.... But it's so nonsense....

1

People with "styles" like this remind me of my sister-in-law. That is not a good thing.

1

Barbarism.

0