Bookshelves

..."We can forgive a man for making a useful thing as long as he does not admire it."

Whenever I am in someone else's house I helplessly find myself drawn to the books. I love to see what other people have read; it's great to see what you have in common with other people, and what you could have in common, or what they would want to share with you.

But more than this, I like to see how people utilize books. If you have them, they are inevitible part of your interior decoration.

Some people, like myself, have wobbly stacks of half-read books all over the place, like leaning towers of babel. Other people are good at keeping book numbers down to their few, personal, essential reads. One shelf with a small, compact collection. Some people keeps their books in the living room, some in the bathroom. Some books are best read in the bathroom.

One thing that seems to be certain, is that books look good wherever you put them, whether they be scattered, stacked, aligned, or balanced. They are things of beauty, as the expression goes.

Which proves Mr. Wilde a little bit wrong. (In his defence he understandably said an awful lot in the interest of self preservation.)