apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

when did books/libaries go out of style?

they didn't. i'm perplexed by the agendas of some posts but anyhoo.. the trend of using a rainbow layout of books has got to die off..

I think maybe it has to do with the great room. A "library" is a quiet room, more or less. Some call it a yoga room, or a memory room, a trophy room. It's not a den where there might be a tv, but instead a room that's just quiet and peaceful away from all the stuff. A friend said, can't I do that in the bedroom?, and while we talked she decided no because the treadmill is in there, and the laundry is calling to her. A library-type (I think would have been a better title to the WSJ article) is 'back in style' because people are looking to escape the big noise, the big screen, the multi-tasking of a great room. That's my story, and I'm sticking to it. ;)

my partner and me are keen readers, so we store around 4000 books in our place. (plus my partner is an information scientist specialised in it-library systems...)
so your tv-free living room serves as a library. sometime i would like to have an extra book-free living room with empty walls, lots of place to display art, photographs and the like. but i gess, this would not be "our" living room, as reading is an important part of our life.

If a rooms main function is for hosing trophies or for watching TV I hardly think it's reasonable to refer to it as a library.

Furthermore, I think it's insane to fill a room with things you never use or fully experience, but since most of the people they interviewed lived in 5,000 square feet homes I hardly think they are looking to be conservative. I suppose everyone's idea of the ideal life is different, my home is 1/5 of the size, so I don't have to work as hard to pay for it and have time for things like relaxing and reading books.

I'm sorry but you can't really *love* books unless you spend time reading them. That's like saying I love Music just because I happen to like the way stacked records look. It's completely superficial.

I do enjoy libraries though, the public kind that my tax dollars pay for. They allow me to read all the books I want and at the same time afford me extra money to spend filling the extra space I have in my home with other things I love to use.

"when did books/libaries go out of style?" -meredith

I'm eighteen, and it seems like hardly anyone in my generation reads for pleasure. Most of my peers even complain about reading assignments for school. Pull up a random Myspace page and chances are the field for listing favorite books will have something like "I DNT READ MUCH LOL" written in it. Any literature professor will tell you kids aren't reading these days. Whenever I go to the local town library the patrons I see are generally elderly people.

Personally, I've been lucky enough to have grown up in a house where the living room had been converted into a home library. We didn't have cable, so naturally I turned to books for entertainment.

For me, a home library is absolutely for reading books in! Comfortable seating is a must and lots of natural light is a perk. Reading has always been such an enriching experience for me, so I find it incredibly sad that the pastime is dying out.

I am a major reader and I didn't like reading for school either, so there is hope for the kids today.

What I can't understand are things like Kindle by Amazon. I would much rather hold a book than look at one more electronic item. It's grounding to hold a book in you hands.

One trend I loved is the combo dining room/library. What a great way to double the chances that the room will be used. Plus, I think books are beautiful and ought to be enjoyed all the time.

A couple decades ago when I worked a counter in a video/videogame store, someone was asking me the difference between games, and I mentioned that the resolution on the letters was better, and then she interrupted me with "oh, THAT doesn't matter, because we don't read."

Me: O_o ....

ANd then there's Auntie Mame, with that one snooty and completely vapid character Gloria, declaring in that Harvard Honk her love of books because "they're just SOOOOO decorative".

I have a room for my TV. The rest of the house is for books!! Living room has wall-to-wall, floor-to-ceiling bookshevles. The "cat sun room area" has wall-to-wall, floor-to-ceiling shelves. The office has a bookcase. The spare bedroom has three red oak bookcases. Reading and love of books has NEVER been out of style in my world. And don't even think of color coding them!! Hideous.

I guess I've always just loved educational reading. Most of the books in my home library are along the lines of encyclopedias and atlases (my all time favorite book as a child was this huge feline book that outlined their evolution, habitats, diets, anatomy, instincts, etc.) So whenever a classmate turns to me and tries to elicit an agreement that the reading for that day's class was boring I think they're absolutely crazy.

I can see some appeal in the Kindle, given how easy it makes obtaining and storing reading material, but I'll always prefer the material to be in book form. If I didn't have room for my books (like if I were living in a tiny apartment) I might consider getting it and limiting my buying of actual books to the ones that I particularly loved, but I'm fortunate enough to have plenty of room.

I'm reminded of Gatsby's library. He just had it for show because that's the sort of thing that rich, well educated people might have in their homes.

Not reading much doesn't strike me as generational. Otherwise we'd have radio stations devoted to talking a lit. instead of sports. I somehow doubt that there's really a 'trend' towards having a library. Maybe people are just calling their home office their library now?

If I had an extra room, I'd use it as a craft/project room. My books can live out in the rest of the house with me, but I'd rather not have my latest sewing project out on my dinner table. I live in a studio now and that's how I use my little breakfast nook.

i didn't really read for pleasure when i was in college/grad school either... no time! give it a few years and maybe you kids will like reading again.

my point was more that the idea of libraries being 'in style' is kind of ridiculous. maybe these are also people who just buy books and don't read them.

I've played with a kindle and it surprisingly reads like you're reading a piece of paper. I thought it was a fake screen at first, until I got to play with it.

It'll never replace books, but man. It was pretty cool. Also slim and lightweight, perfect for a purse or school. (If it has the books you want to read in it, however. There always is a catch, isn't there?)

We have a kindle in our house and it's great. Really great when you're traveling too. I was skeptical at first, but it's easy to read (no backlighting) and for some reason I feel like I read faster. Plus, you don't have to hold pages open, you can buy books from Amazon directly from the unit, it knows where you left off & you can highlight passages and make "margin" notes...can't wait for the 2nd generation.

The article panders to the Jay Gatsby readership of the Wall Street Journal, nothing more. It suggests libraries as a trend in new million dollar homes for owners who seek comfort and coziness in anxious times... and their designers provide them that comfort without the burden of having to collect and read books themselves.

Call it a "Den" - a "Library" - an "Away Room"...
...but people need a cozy, quiet place to sit and read/talk or do whatever.

You can't do that in a 2-story "Great Room" with the kids on the 52" Plasma/Dolby 5.2/Wii and the appliances in the trophy kitchen winking/beeping/buzzing at you.

Evello, sooo true. It's sad.

These "homes" are bigger than most public library branches.

I've wanted a library in my house since I was a kid. For one because I love to read. But also as a place to keep musical instruments (piano practice can get annoying sometimes) and as a place to cozy up in front of the fire and relax or chat with friends....I guess maybe it'd be more like a parlor but with a lot of books :)

Since I grew up in a home overflowing with books and now live in an apartment crammed with books, it never occurred to me that libraries might be out of style. I've never lived in such a large space that I could have a room dedicated solely to reading, but I would love one. And no matter how small my home, my living room will always be lined with bookshelves. That said, I'm mystified by the photo above-- that rainbow-hued bookshelf is a dead give-away that the resident never reads. So what's the point of collecting all those books if you're not going to enjoy them?

I only own about a hundred or so books. Maybe less, now. I have to give a bunch away, too, because I'm moving internationally.

That said, a library or a den as a cozy, TV-free room with some nice floor-to-ceiling bookshelves and a squishy leather sofa *is* a dream-home feature I will have some day. Technically I have no need for one right now; a couple tall bookshelves would do me and leave room for a couple heavy bookends as well. Leaving plenty of room for those steampunk "library accessories" - antique globes, maps, and a liquor cabinet! :)

But a library that is not designed to actually, you know, read books in? Distasteful.

I always wanted the library Lex Luthor zings around in, on that long library ladder in his underground lair, in Superman (1977). Ooo, and the library in Hellboy, is the one all my bookish friends get all drooly over. It looks so peaceful and deliciously inviting. Bookshelves that stretch on forever, beckoning you closer, as you feel your head tilt with that familiar crick to read the spines....

Personal libraries are great on any scale. If I had the space, well, who knows....Sigh. My tiny abode overflows with books. So I guess I'm living in a library by default?

I only worry about visiting (often huge) houses with no books. none. anywhere.

I don't own any books simply because I can't afford them, and I've moved a million times...a box of just a few books is sooo heavy! There's nothing scary about a person who doesn't own any books....get to know their reason before saying you worry about them, like they are deficient. I love browsing the stacks at B&N and reading a book with a cup of coffee, then putting it down and going to retrieve a different one, ones that would never find a home with me but fascinate me nonetheless. I could spend hours in there. I did the same thing in college at a small local bookstore. Loved going but rarely bought anything. I once had a date ask me what was the last book I read and when I said I couldn't remember he immediately ended the date, saying he couldn't date someone who didnt read....I was beyond offended. The last book I BOUGHT was Anna Karenina....and read it cover to cover in three days...he judged too quickly and lost out because of it.

because there is nothing good on TV

Kind of a sidebar, but...

I tried to arrange my books by color like shown in the picture, but I had waaaay too many black and white ones. How do people get this to look so cool? Do they only use the fun colored ones?

My parents drove up this weekend and delivered 4 boxes of books from my college days. The ones that I couldn't sell back on Amazon. Hurray!

It's a nice idea, but frankly I can't afford to buy enough books to have a decent home library. I use an actual library. I'm not really into owning a lot of stuff anyway.

I guess if I were a different kind of person, and I had a room devoted to books, that would probably be my office as well, but I'd read in another room more than likely. Currently I read in the living room, on the bus, or sometimes in bed.