Our books reveal us.
written by Julie R. Neidlinger 2 comments link this post
The books we own tell our story whether we like it or not.
What we read says more about us than any front we try to put on. Though guardians of privacy bemoan how the government can find out what books we check out from the public library, by shopping online we give out the same information.
Amazon's purchase circles, for example, are loaded with information if you know how to read it. With a few clicks, you can find out what the most popular books (ordered off of Amazon, of course, not taking into account books bought at bookstores) are in the various branches of government, the military, private companies, geographic regions, universities, and organizations.
If you have some time, it's a lot of fun to see what people are buying, and then wondering what the significance of it means. For example, a top seller (#6) in Grand Forks is Reinventing the Bazaar: A Natural History of Markets. And that actually makes sense. Grand Forks has a ever-growing summer-long farmers market built into their reconstructed downtown venue. It's a big draw. But what continues to fascinate is that if you look at the North Dakota Higher Education Computer Network (under the education category of circles) you'll find many of the books from the Grand Forks listing there, in similar order.
Clearly, these two circles overlap.
On it's own, this is an uninteresting fact. Who cares that the Bazaar book shows up on both lists? But when you think of what purchase circles reveal as a whole...it could be an interesting study if someone had the time, patience, and research experience to make something of the links between circles. These purchase circles take an unscientific "book average" and reveal a little about the people that make up that circle.
It's already been theorized that the government could use the extensive wish lists on Amazon to find "subversives." Call it data mining, call it intrusive -- I know I use my wish list not so much to get other people to buy me stuff but to store books I want to buy for later. If I come across an article or review of a book that intrigues me, I pop over to Amazon and add it to my wish list. It would be a great way for someone to find out much about me simply by seeing what I want to read.
Our personal libraries reveal who we are in a personal way, even if we have books we haven't gotten around to reading yet.
The way we categorize or organize our books reveals something; I'm a visual person and I arrange some books by category while others I arrange by the color and size of the cover. The books we put in plain view, what I call "vanity" books, reveals something just as how the books we hide does the same. The books that show the most wear and use reveals something; the same can be said for the books we've bought but never gotten around to reading. How we take care of our books, or whether we'll lend them out, reveals something. And of course, the subject matter of the books themselves, all across the board, reveals something. We show what our priorities are, what our dreams our, what we fear, what we hate, what we love, how we like to escape, who we wish we were, if we're lazy, if we hope, who we want to lead us, or if we lead -- it's all there, in the books.
The books we are attracted to reflect every aspect of our nature. How often people have expressed surprise at what I'm reading, I've lost count, but what it tells me is that our reading choices reveal things about us that we had chosen not to reveal to our friends. Our books are the fullest expression of ourselves.
You are what you read? Maybe, but I think it's better to say that we read what we are.
Labels: books
Copyright (c) Julie R. Neidlinger 1/31/2006 06:41:00 PM
SHARE THIS POST: Facebook | Stumble It! | Del.icio.us | DiggIt! | Technorati | Blinklist | Furl | reddit | Newsvine
Like this post? Subscribe to the feed.
Click here to help support this site.
2 Comments:
My fiction is arranged alphabetically, by author. My non-fiction is arranged by subject, in a loose adaptation of the Dewey Decimal System. I really don't worry about the colors or sizes of my books, like some people I know..
By the way, there's a Monk marathon coming up that you might be interested in watching.
By 
Corrine, at
January 31, 2006 8:55 PM
Thank you for taking a serious post and turning it into a mockery.
(Um, when was that marathon on?)
By Julie, at
January 31, 2006 10:02 PM
