What our books say about us

Creating a library is a psychically loaded enterprise. In gathering their bounty, book-lovers have displayed anxiety, avarice, envy, fastidiousness, obsession, lust, pride, pretension, narcissism, and agoraphobia — indeed every biblical sin and most of the pathologies from the American Psychiatric Association manual.

Stuart Kells, The Library

Stuart Kells

Books, like knickknacks on a shelf or clothes in a closet, tend to accumulate over time. On rare occasions someone might set out with a plan — to collect William Faulkner first editions, for example, or books on railroading — but most of us acquire a book here and another there. A library book sale brings in a boxful. In time we may have a bookcase full of books, and some of us may even find ourselves with a rather large personal library.

So is this really as random as it seems, or does it, as Stuart Kells suggests in The Library, reveal much about our personalities, our passions, our history and our sins? I think our books are, or at least can, be revealing. I'm sure there are some people who have shelves full of books but never read them and never even purchased them in the first place. They are just books given to them or perhaps left behind by parents or a former roommate. So books can be misleading, but in most cases I believe our books do say something about us.

So what do my own books say about me?

Above me to my right is a shelf of books about time: philosophy books, psychology books, science books, self-help books, history books, you name it. All about time.. A casual observer might wonder about this. In truth, the books date from when I worked on an eventually aborted book on the Judeo-Christian perception of time, a straight line as opposed to a circle.

Over to my left is another shelf full of books about submarines, both fiction and nonfiction. Other books about submarines are scattered here and there throughout my library. So why submarines? This collection might be confusing to people who know me, misleading to those who don't. I don't know exactly, but I suspect these books stem from the fact that I am a bit claustrophobic. I don't read horror stories. When I want a good scare, I read a book about submarines.

My large collection of books about Christianity, especially works by and about C.S. Lewis, says something about my faith. My shelves full of aging classic novels and collections of short stories may suggest I studied literature in college, and their publication dates may reveal my approximate age.

My nonfiction books cover a broad spectrum of topics, while my fiction collection includes a multitude of genres, as well as books that might be considered both high-brow and low-brow. I own a lot of novels written by and mostly read by women. What I hope all this says about me is that I am someone with broad interests, diverse tastes and no insecurities about my sexual identity.