the secrets on the shelves

[dream_labyrinth]

A lot of things are supposed to tell others what sort of person you are.
The people you associate with, the things you wear, your hobbies.
For me, the best way to get to know a person is browsing their bookshelves.
A person who does not own any books, in my humble opinion, seriously lacks personality.

Now, considering that my predecessor for 30 years decided what was bought for the library, and that he served his own interest more than that of the institution, the bookshelves of the library can give quite a good impression of his personality.

I have gotten quite a good look so far into the stacks, and I can't say I like what I find overmuch.
His hobby was military music, so of course there are many books about this.
Secondly, I believe he is very much obsessed with conspiracy theories of any description. The bible code, how the evangelists anticipated everything from natural desasters to World War II - we have books about it. Just about every theory about 9/11? Certainly. The middle ages that were just an ínvention? Of course! Aliens who developed the earth, aliens at Area 51, some obscure power infiltrating our lives and stealing all our personal information? All there.
Lastly, he seems to be leaning quite close to the rather right-winged groups, politically. There are some books that would never ever make it into any bookshelve over which I have any sort of influence. (On the other hand, one of the books apparently blames the communist-fascist jewish corporations for 9/11...)

Personally, I have yet to find a conspiracy theory that sounds at all likely.
Not because I am so naive to believe that the press and TV tells us the truth and major corporations are benevolent and magnanimous, and governments are made up of truthful people with strong principles.
No, I simply don't believe in conspiracy theories because I don't see all the people involved as being able to work together so well to convincingly present a different reality.
My favorite example is the theory about the Middle Ages being invented, Charlemagne having never existed and all that. Because somebody found that if those years were indeed invented, they were invented all over the world. And of course, everybody knows that China, the Arabic world and Europe had well established lines of communication to pull this off...
*raises eyebrow*
Who believes those things???

But lets get back to the topic of bookshelves and their contents.
I suppose my own bookshelves show me as a person who reads mainly historical novels, with a tendency for historical romance, who loves fairy tales, but who also reads authors qualifying for "world literature". This selection interspersed with some non-fiction, selected with the aim to become a well-informed individual in every aspect of life, the sciences as well as history and politics. (We'll not discuss how much I succeed in that area...)
The nonfiction is all in German, but in the fiction there's quite a lot of English as well.
Pretty much all of the books have been read, I don't have books just for decoration.

Judging from my bookshelves, I seem like quite a nice, interesting person, actually.
So what's on your shelves?

Comments

[wolflady26.livejournal.com]

My bookshelves themselves are rather lacking, since I had to leave so much behind in America when I moved, and because I've relied so heavily on the library recently. Nearly all of the books on my shelves are fantasy, with a bit of sci-fi, mainstream fiction, science, and roleplaying books thrown in. I'd prefer to be judged by my reading list, which is more diverse.

[dream-labyrinth.livejournal.com]

Well, yours is a bit of a special situation as you couldn't take all your books.

[quietselkie.livejournal.com]

Our bookshelves have three collections--his, mine, and ours. Lots of fiction of all sorts, encyclopedias, old college texts, business books, craft books, how-to books...they ARE our decoration, since they cover so much wall space. LOL. Book crazy, we are.

[dream-labyrinth.livejournal.com]

I believe that books are the best thing to use for decoration. A room without books somehow doesn't seem as inhabited as a room with books.
Once I settle down in a real place as opposed to a room on the base, I am sure my bookshelves will overflow in no time.

[quietselkie.livejournal.com]

People without books don't have real lives, LOL.

[dream-labyrinth.livejournal.com]

Oh my, you're really into diverse reading material!

*gg* I hide the porn on a shelve that's hidden by my bed... ;-)

[jonthedull.livejournal.com]

I've never heard of a theory about the Middle Ages being invented. How would that work? Why would some one do that? That's totally bizzar.

Almost all of my books are nonfiction, military history, old enginering text books, computer books, old computer books, books about cars, and aeroplanes, and military machinery, some history, some nature, some scifi, mostly Arthur C. Clarke and Stanislaw Lem.

[dream-labyrinth.livejournal.com]

Here's the wikipedia link about the invented centuries: Phantom time hypothesis (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phantom_time_hypothesis).
That Nimitz guy mentioned in the text is a professor at my university. I had one seminar in the studium generale which he gave. IIRC, I was there every week but never listened to a single thing he said.
(The studium generale is intended to make students learn more than their immediate field of interest. Several seminars and lectures are offered, each student has to take one and do whatever is required in that seminar to pass. I chose one that only required attendance...)

[jonthedull.livejournal.com]

I'm not a historian, but that phantom time hypothesis is just about the stupidest thing I've heard in a while.

[cleverusername2.livejournal.com]

My favorite is the one on how space travel is impossible and that the moon landing was faked. I agree, you just can't pull of conspiracies like this and have them stand. Hundreds of thousands of people from all over the world participated in the moon shot, from the U.S. to Austraila. You just can't keep a secret that fantastic when so many people are involved, someone would have come out and blabed to the media and written a tell-all book.

Conspiracy theories on how the Pentagon 9/11 attack was faked really get on my nerves. If the military shot a missile at it's own headquarters, why would they hit the only side that had been remodeled? Do you really think they were callous enough to kill 29 of their own workers? What happened to all the people and passengers on American Airlines Flight 77? It's stupid. It's disrespectful.

The director of the whole Army Libraries program was in that side of the building that day, she was hit with a chunk of concrete and was in a coma for several days.

[dream-labyrinth.livejournal.com]

Oh yeah, because if you play the recordings of people walking on the moon with double speed, it looks just as if they are walking on earth, gravity and all that. So they can't possibly be on the moon.

It's so silly when people claim that manipulating pictures and recordings of events will reveal the truth that was hidden by manipulating the same pictures and recordings.

The director of the army libraries programme is probably part of the conspiracy. *looksaroundsuspiciously* They're everywhere...
;-)

[call-me-harmony.livejournal.com]

I don't actually own that many books but I am a great user of the library.

My one book shelf holds 27 books connected to spirituality, from tarot, to crystals, to herbs to wicca, to green witchcraft.
Weapons of Terror - the report of the Weapons of Mass Destruction Commission.
Trident on Trial - a book about activism against the Trident Nuclear Weapons System and the legal case against trident.
A book for identifying trees.
Three cross stitch books.
A book about dream interpretation.
A book about Aspergers Syndrome.The Sims "2 Official Guide and 29 issues of the ecologist.

[dream-labyrinth.livejournal.com]

I'd say your bookshelves really tell what is close to your heart.
Cool, it seems my theory is right... :-)

[call-me-harmony.livejournal.com]

Yes it looks like a good theory to me.

[queen-crabapple.livejournal.com]

Lots of old stuff--- I went through this "phase" from the time I was about 13 to the time I was 20 or so when I didn't read anything written after the 1920s. Seriously. Lots of Victorian stuff. Since then, it's become a much more eclectic mix. Judging from my bookshelves, I probably look more or less like a lit. professor with multiple personality disorder.

[dream-labyrinth.livejournal.com]

Or just like somebody who keeps collecting and doesn't throw stuff away.
But really, I could never ever throw away a book. You might give it away to a good home, but that's the most I could do.

[linnapaw.livejournal.com]

WHat's on my bookshelves... Well, there's my librarything account to give you an idea of what I had in Germany... But I guess there's a loteee A lot of nonfiction, especially dealing with Russia, a fair amount of kiddie lit, religious books, White Rose books, "regular" fiction, a couple Calvin & Hobbes books, books in German, English, and Russian, not to mention the books to learn other languages like French, Latin, and Ukrainian. Oh yes, and there are a good number of reference and trivia books as well. :)

[dream-labyrinth.livejournal.com]

What would you consider "regular fiction"?
The rest - you know that you're probably one of no more than 5% of American citizens who have books in three languages on their bookshelves?
;-)