(Ha ha he actually lent me JLS because I was going through a v. depressed patch and he thought it might help. Blimey.)

http://alantrewartha.20m.com/cockbook.jpg

*see the odious Lee on learning of his eviction from BB3, or Tim Henman's pathetic attempts to gee himself up during Wimbledon.

I am looking at my bookshelf now for turn-ons and turn-offs (frankly the sordid state of the rest of the room leaves this moot but oh well). Most notable plus is a copy of BLIMEY! with its big green title (well I would like it). Dodgiest areas: "THE HARD SELL" an air-punching book about marketing given me by my Dad; nasty book club editions copy of Lord of the Rings; Gordon Burn's horrid book about Fred West which needs to go to the s/h shop soon; "The New Oxford Guide To Writing", again never opened; several "X For Beginners" books which mark me as the pseud I am.

I think that there are very few books worse than a complete lack of books. The Lord of the Rings is one of 'em, and any books compared on the back blurb to LotR are more of 'em.

As far as my own shelves are concerned, the obvious things people might find dodgy are my books on the tube map, the excess of computing gubbins and my collection of Tolkien stuff.

Well, that's a *lovely* way of putting it, isn't it?

I have... wait for it... a Blakes 7 episode guide.

RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!!

In my *ahem* defence, I didn't buy it.

Surely that's a turn on though Archel, cos anyone who owns it is surely a feminist lezzer wahey!

(if there are any more relationship threads this week I will cry)

People who have nothing but a few comedy books and a few tatty books they're had since childhood.

Who's Who, Debret's Peerage anything like that.

But if their relatives are giving them dodgy books then who knows what they'll be giving you when they're your inlaws.

I'd dump someone for not being a memeber of a lending library though.

Come ON pitchfork people I am bored do you want to start a FITE? Look I am using 'babyspeak', you hate that don't you???

Part of my saying I "can't justify" the thing about 95% female authors has to do with the fact that my bookshelves are ... err ... well maybe 85-90% male. I guess the difference I'd posit is that yeah, as Ktee says the canon is male-ish to begin with, so that doesn't require programmatic effort on my part. Whereas having 95%- female shelves implies some sort of systematic gender-preference. It's ... well ... I feel like I've met a decent number of women who appear to have this great love of literature but in fact just use literature as this incidental tool, or container, for the transmission of their real loves. Not that there's anything wrong with that, just that it doesn't fit well with the way I like to think about literature. And people with that framework are always ridigly opposed to admitting that that's just a personal framework, and not some objective value indicator.

i once stayed over in a friend's apartment, and on his roommate's bookshelf were four books:
The Idiot's Guide to New York City
The War Against Boys: How Misguided Feminism Is Harming Our Young Men by Christina Hoff Sommers
Dave Eggars' latest masterpiece
9-11 ed. Jeff Mason

Can we say 'date rapist'?

Two of my dearest friends have loads of fantasy novels, lots of John Norman (those horrid Gor novels) and Georgette Heyer, none of which I understand since they are lovely, interesting and intelligent people.

Hm. It looks like my plans to fix the lovely Katie up with the lovely Tim B will have to be shelved. (NB: there never were such plans, obviously. I say this as possibly the only person who knows both parties to the dispute.)

I nominate Pratchett... surely girls do not read Pratchett?

ESPECIALLY IF THEY WERE A 32-foot INSECT-PRIEST obv!!!

...proving once again that the phrase 'i'm a 20-something living in manhattan' is inherently offensive.

In My Collection there is

yes anthony, but the fact that you have them ALL cancels out the other objections. btw, tell me you bought 'glamorama' on sale.

A well-thumbed copy of something by de Sade would make me most apprehensive.

I'd have a hard time being civil to someone who reads the Left Behind books.

Initially I read this as Atlas Shagged, and frankly that strikes me as a far greater work of art. :-)

I do not necessarily think this is true.

Literary turnoffs for me: Beats, mainly because thanks to the way culture goes now their attitudes, never really all that out there to begin with, turned trite in about 30 seconds. Also usually this taste-tic is accompanied by either lots of listening to Bob Marley (and no other reggae artist ever because why would you need anything when you have 'Legend"?) or some atrocious bark-metal group or five or six. Henry Rollins, because he's always gonna be one career step away from having gone into gym-teaching and his poetry suXor. Blake Nelson. Novelizations of any science fiction movies.

I'm also as a rule fairly put off when men have zero (or just, say, C. Hoff Sommers or Ann Coulter or Camille Paglia, when it's just her and no other woman I'm sorry, that is a huge red flag to me) female authors' books on their shelves. Which I think is much more of a common case than what you described up top. And I know I can wholly attribute this attitude to my running with this pretentious-boy crowd a couple of years ago that lived pretty much only to impress one another, and who liked to use the literature they were reading, some of which is by authors I think are okay like Ellis and Coupland and Lethem but all of which was exclusively by men, as 'signs' or 'branding' or other various forms of horseshit to justify the fact that they were misogynist, miserable snipes who couldn't relate to people on anything even approaching a human level, and I learned this the hard way when I moved so I could hang out with them more.

Uh, sorry, this turned into a bit more than the thread asked for there.

I try not to be a snob, but these are a few big turn-offs:

The Left Behind books. I work with a girl I generally like, except that these are the only books she's read since high school. Same goes for Celestine Prophecy. Is it better not to read at all?

Any poetry by any rock star - Morrison, Rollins et al. I admit I have Deborah Curtis's book with all of Ian's lyrics in the back, tho.

Most fantasy. I read so much of it when I was 12 that when I meet anyone my age (or older, gaaah) who still reads it I can't help but feel like they're trying to be like me when I was 12. Not cool.

Star Trek books. This makes me go into "Harlan Ellison" mode.

I notice no one said the Bible!

alan i am unashamedly jealous!

If they didn'yt have a dictionary I'd worry. Indeed a well stocked reference shelf is very attractive.

Di - I think I can match. Has anyone ever heard of Louise Bagshaw? She is the high priestess of bonkbuster sex and shopping types. It's like Jackie Collins, but without the casual homophobia. Sometimes only tales of beautiful career girls in chocoIate lace underwear fighting off their rivals will do. I own five of her books. Only one of them came free on the cover of a magazine.

*cliterati do that so much better!

Actually, among a certain contingent your dateability has now just skyrocketed. :-) Though Tim F. would be an exception due to obvious reasons.

Trash fantasy is my own enjoyable indulgence. Dennis McKiernan? Megahack with those first novels of his -- and yet I own them! Dog-eared used copies for about a buck each, sure, but still.