Mine says that I like crime mysteries, early London, the history of the underground, lots of books on poisonous plants and insects, Harry Potter, one or two design books, several dictionaries in different languages, and a few humour books.

My internet bookmarks tell a slightly naughtier story, and that's why my computer is password protected, haha.

Now that I have a kindle, I'm afraid that my bookshelves are going to become like my shelves of CDs are -- a shadow representation of a past version of myself, still relevant but incomplete.

Bookshelves change over the years. What used to be filled with sci-fi and fantasy adventures are now mostly American history, political science, contemporary musings, poetry, religion, biographies, art books, and loads of Calvin and Hobbes comic collection books. Not one damn design book anywhere.

Lots of 19th century fiction: Trollope, Gissing, the Brontes. Lots of 20th century outsider fiction: Rhys, McCullers, Kafka. Physique photography, opera singer bios, punk rock zines, Warhol monographs, '60s pop music annuals, and a signed copy of Joan Crawford's "My Way of Life." Me in a nutshell.

My bookshelves are a fairly accurate representation of me. Mostly fantasy (not the bodice ripping kind), cook books, and what I call books for the edification of the mind. But I did just buy a nook. So the majority of my paperbacks are about to disappear.

It would say I love scifi, fantastic, chicklit, history. Also that I like to cook, to sew, that I'm either a scientist or an engineer (got both degrees in fact), that I'm bilingual and that I invest waaayyy too much in graphic novels!

My shelves didnt really changed, I just added new stuff to the ''old''. Im very careful with my books and I like disposing them in a certain way. I still have the books that I loved when I was a teenager and I like having them in my house. My books probably says contradictory things about me; the artistic part of me has a load of novels, plays, dictionaries, tons of fashion magazines, decor magazines, cookbooks... The biomed student has a bunch of colorful anatomy atlas, neurology, genetics and molecular biology volumes... I like to have them co-exist, its whats make me whole...

We have a LOT of film books. Then there are his graphic novels and my home design books, among others. But yeah, mostly film history books, actor/director biographies and screenplays. Viva la cinema!

Books! My favorite AT topic. Just the sheer number of books I have says a lot about me (mainly that I'm a bookish geek). I'm the only person of my age in my group of friends with 1,000 or so books which I don't even think of as that many since I'm lucky enough to have the shelf space. I keep 20% of my books in my living room and the other 80% in the office and so anyone looking at just my living room shelf would have an incomplete idea. My living room shelf expresses my love of art and design and Victorian and contemporary literature -- lots of Edith Wharton and Henry James novels rub covers with David Foster Wallace, Thomas Pynchon and Saul Bellow. I've basically just split them by subject (almost all my large art coffee table books and smaller books on art history are in the living room while my entire collection of Anthony Trollope novels are in the office) and then by size. The living room bookshelf just suits larger books better, and the shelves are fixed whereas the office bookshelves can fit books of all size. I admit I hide my more embarrassing titles on the very top shelves (Ayn Rand, anybody?).

@Eliz I have a kindle too and as much as I'm fond of it, particularly when going away for a weekend or travelling on public transport, for me it will never replace proper books.

Our bookshelf is an eclectic collection of both my husband's and my interests; sci fi, graphic novels, art and coffee table books, Victorian novels, children's lit and classic literature, (I'm an English teacher,) history, in particular London and British history as that's where we live, and travel and language guides for the European countries we've been fortunate enough to visit.

well, my books say a lot about me. keen reader in 3 languages, classics, mostly 20th century, interested in politics, history, feminism, cooking and baking. think dostoevsky in russian next to simone de beauvoir to claude lanzman and vegan cupcakes.

Oh I forgot to add that most of the 4000+ books are in the living room and in the office while only a small part is in the bedroom. I dream of a private library. It would totally make sense as my parter works in library related IT and I am almost every time mistaken for a librarian when I am in a bookstore or library. People come to me an ask me where they can find books or how much they are.

My bookshelves loudly proclaim that I'm useless at dust control. Other than that, most of my books come and go from the library so there's always a widely assorted pile of fiction and other odds and ends in various spots around the house. My personal collection consists of reference books on sewing and crafts in the sewing room; DIY, history, geography and selected literary classics in the sleeping room; cookery and garden books in the kitchen.

That would be the public library by the way, not a cozy booklined room in my own house.

I like social history, international literature, and Modernist fiction. I also have an entire shelf devoted to Cthulhu Mythos books - a complete edition of Lovecraft's stories, anthologies from Chaosium's Call of Cthulhu fiction line, collections by various contemporary Mythos authors (Sargent, Pugmire, Ligotti), Innsmouth Free Press collections, and collections by Lovecraft's predecessors Arthur Machen and Robert W. Chambers. Oh, and also this book published in the 1940s called It's an Old New England Custom that includes a chapter called "To Thirst After Strange Gods." I got it yesterday at an antique bookstore of precisely the type Lovecraft would have loved.

I suppose my bookshelves say I'm eclectic: generally a serious reader but not afraid to indulge a fun geeky side.

Well, I am a Librarian and also have a "read then offload" policy for fiction that I buy rather than borrow, so my shelves give a skewed view. My partner and I only collect things we want to refer to again. Science, mythology, informational tools, sci-fi and fantasy (some collectible out of print types) including Harry Potter, decor, gardening, jewelry crafts, art, humor, some history and political works (his), etc. Mostly non-fiction, and what we choose to keep gets reviewed as interests change. (Landscaping books are less interesting now that my yard is established, for instance.) I think the shelves holding my pantheon of archeological replicas of deities of many ancient cultures plus a Pieta and R2D2 says more about me...

that we travel and cook a lot!

By the way, if you're in Chicago, and are looking to thin out your bookshelves, there is a wonderful shop called Open Books. It's on Franklin, just north of Chicago ave. They are staffed entirely by volunteers, all the books in the shop are donated and the proceeds go to fund their literacy program. I've found it's a great way to unload all the paperbacks I no longer want on my shelves, and an even better way to replace them with hardcover books! Hardcovers can easily go for as little as $8. Paperbacks for under $3.

The lack of books in my space would suggest that I'm an illiterate dolt, only interested in naughty photos. I keep a tightly edited handful of reference books (cooking, gardening, sewing) and a few coffee table books (nude photography), but the rest I read and pass on. I rarely read a novel twice, I don't like the clutter and dust that books create. You'd assume that an English major with emphasis on publishing and post-secondary work in editing would love books. I love stories. I love words. I love that I can experience anything that can be imagined by reading about it on the printed page. But nope, I don't so much love books. How odd.

That depends entirely on which bookcase and which room. The living room bookcase is mostly classics (Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, etc.). Cookbooks on the top shelf on the baker's rack in the kitchen. The den/library has one shelf with biography, drama and nonfiction, a bookcase with chick lit on the top shelf, mystery novels and sci-fi in the middle and children's books on the bottom, and another that is a catch-all for general fiction, with autographed books. The autographed books are a really random assortment of genres - a first edition of Ragtime by E.L. Doctorow that was a wedding gift from my bridesmaids, a signed copy of The Pigeon Wants a Puppy by Mo Willems that was a Valentine's Day gift from my husband, and copies of The Pluto Files and Awakenings, from when I met Neil deGrasse Tyson and Oliver Sacks, respectively.

So I guess my bookcases say I am well-rounded, and clearly a librarian by profession, since they are organized by genre and alphabetical by author. If I had enough non-fiction to justify doing so, I'd probably assign Dewey numbers as well. :-P

that we like psychedelia, post-modern fiction, mythology, a little sci-fi, photography, natural birth, cooking and have kids (which we don't, but we do have a children's books section on the bottom shelf (= )

Wharton, Maugham, Capote, Sedaris, Austen, King, Christian/devotional books, sheet music booklets, horror & science horror, true crime, chicken soup series, cat books, fashion, make-up, shape magazine, sunset magazine, runner's world, backpacker magazine, reader's digest

It says that I'll read anything and everything and pile it anywhere. In all my years of reading AT, Jane Mount is one my favorite discoveries. I remember her smallest coolest entry and am glad to see success for such a talented and interesting person. Go Jane!

I think my book collection just says "hoarder." I cannot go to the thrift store without buying at least one book.

My bookshelves are filled with children's literature (it's mine, not my kids'!) like the Little House series, Roald Dahl books, Harry Potter and Anne of Green Gables; current pop fiction like The Hunger Games and Twilight (shut up); tons and tons of farm and garden books, and classics like The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and Wuthering Heights.

I only buy books that I'm going to read over and over again. Everything else is borrowed from the library. I wonder how it will all change now that I recently bought a Kindle?

My living room bookcase is a little more refined (my very very favorites and classics) and my bedroom holds my guilty pleasures. (Twilight is hidden in my bedroom.)

I/we have lots of books?

It really depends on the part of the house. On the main floor (where most people are) we have most of our childhood books (including books for my great grandmother, i.e., pre-1900), history and social culture books (especially American and European history and architecture, house plans (circa 1900-1930) and photography) and cookbooks (lots and lots of cookbooks--several hundred even after culling several times over the last few years--and yes, I read/use lots of them all the time). Upstairs, gardening, more history social and otherwise, sci fi (hubster's), stuff in the news (mine) and etiquette and house keeping books (my dissertation topic, but I still collect and love to read for fun). We could pare down but we have enough room we don't have to right now, and we read and reread a lot.

What can I say...a couple of booklovers and academic types.

My bookshelves aren’t a *snapshot* of me so much as a *history* of me, which is exactly what I like about them (and those of others). My childhood copy of "Little Women," the complete set of Tolkien that I read at 13, my parents’ tattered copy of "Catch 22" that I devoured at 14 (and periodically thereafter) to modernists like T.C. Boyle, Jonathan Ames and and everything David Foster Wallace has ever published. In between? Lots of Kingsley and Martin Amis, Saul Bellow, Penguin classics, most of Jane Austen, Evelyn Waugh, scads of books on music, way too many cookbooks and Christopher Alexander’s "A Pattern Language" first among the few design books. In sum: I like to read good fiction and eat good food amidst ample light. In a comfortable chair, with everything from Coltrane to Arcade Fire for dessert.

This is fun! I have one of those sapien shelves from DWR, and it's full from the floor up in my living room. This is where I store my favorite hardcover books. Mainly sci-fi and fantasy, graphic novels, art books, lots of Shel Silverstein, (Where the Sidewalk Ends, etc.) and my favorite classics.

I gave away the bulk of my book collection prior to moving here. The rest are in my kitchen on top of the upper cabinets. These are mostly coffee table books like PostSecret, and design books. I put them there temporarily while I was unpacking, and decided they look nice there.

Well, if it's just the stuff I have in my apartment, it pretty much just screams "ENGINEERING STUDENT!" as they're all engineering textbooks because I don't have room in my car when I move for the rest of my books. (I've got a kindle, so that really helps with that)

As for when I finally don't have to move every 4 months and can get the rest of my books out of storage, it will definitely show my love of sci-fi and fantasy, but still pretty much just be what I read as a child (Dr. Seuss, Serendipity books, little house books, Anne of Green Gables, Diana Wynne Jones, Tolkien, Harry Potter, Series of Unfortunate Events, Tamora Pierce, Wizard of Oz, Charlotte's Web, Garth Nix, etc.) It'll also show a little bit of an affinity for pop science and history.

Hopefully I can get some more 'adult' books once I'm out of college and actually have money!

Books tell us either what we are or what we'd like to appear. I love big bookshelves, because they are rarely stylish and prove that the owner loves books enough to read them and doesn't care about design or aesthetic as much as he/she cares about keeping the best books around. That seems to be the case for everyone who commented above (keep on having good books !!).

On the other hand, I've seen more than enough of books used as props. Usually, you find those glossy picture books for adults. MCM, Eames, maybe a Conran book, usually a regional style book, organized by color if possible. While there's nothing wrong with the books themselves, I hate that "I chose that book because the cover matches the paint on the wall". Really ? That is why I hate books used as props, because they tell me things I don't like about the owner.

Personally, I find books to be almost intimate. As I'm lucky enough to have a whole room devoted to a home office upstairs, guests won't see a book in my house unless they go up the stairs, to the more "family" part of the house where guest seldom go. There, I keep a well-edited collection of philosophical books (from early Greeks to Husserl), my favorite classics, beloved books like Little Women, Anne of Green Gables, Terry Pratchett or Harry Potter. My husband and I also have a huge collection of belgian comics, and I hunt everything Calvin and Hobbes book. But if someone comes to our house, he/she won't see a book and would think we don't read at all, except for the few worn-out cookbooks I have in the kitchen (yes, I've read Homemade cheese making a thousand times, and have never ever made cheese at home).

My books say that I am a Potterhead, a comic book/graphic novel nerd, a mystery/suspense lover, a wanna be cook and a slight romantic.

I was just thinking about this! I have lots of novels of all different types, non-fiction narratives about everything, mixed in with Spanish novels (from undergrad) and policy books and handbooks (from grad school). I LOVE books, and I can always find something that I have never read just by looking in my own stacks. I am also a library junkie... oh the fines I've paid.

Late Victorian, Modernism, foreign cookbooks, French-language texts, dictionaries, travel, art books – once I read something I just amass it forever

Mine say that I love the classics, France, a smattering of Sci-Fi, and cooking. I absolutely love these prints -- the custom painting would be such a wonderful gift!

It says I need to buy more bookshelves... Aside from that it also says I like romance, fantasty, urban fantasty, chick lit, classics, historicals, Sci-Fi, childhood books, yaoi mangas, that i travelled in europe and japan, that i knit and cook, that i game a lot (all those VG guides!) and that the bf's into WWI and WII history and war-related bios/retellings. And that I looooooooooooove European bandes dessinées. :)

My bookshelf says I desperately want(ed) to escape my life (at some point). The adventure books I read and re-read are still there, but gathering dust, while the "take control" section of my library is growing with budgeting and finance books, books about working and living better, and humorous selections that help me embrace the nonsensities of the daily trudge.

My husband sticks to sports & history while I read pretty much every other category excluding sports & history.