While reading an article on the BBC website today I made a shock discovery. Apparently you don’t need to read books to be clever. Of course you don’t, intelligence can’t be settled by having ticked off a list of approved reading, and if you believe some of the recent controversy about the ‘dumbed down’ state of our bestseller lists, we’re all headed for Dumbsville.But that wasn’t actually the fact that struck me. Three quarters of the way through the article Denise Winterman writes about books having lost their ‘chic’ and quotes Professor John Sutherland as saying "If you try and sell your house, estate agents will tell you to get rid of the books, they are viewed as tired and middle aged". Huh? Now in my ongoing house hunting quest I’ve met some odd estate agents (particularly that lovely lady who said I was asking her the ‘wrong’ questions – aha blog revenge!) but surely books are part of that aspirational lifestyle that people are drawn to when viewing a house – aren’t they? The idea that you may have the time and inclination to read gorgeously produced literature – doesn’t that cast a better light on the mod cons and double glazing? Or has the rise of Tesco et al in the bookselling stakes put a permanent kibosh on this?
The quest continues by the way…
5 comments:
When were books chic? Really…when?
On a happier subject I got a new bag for Christmas and can now read hardbacks on the train. And I even managed to squeeze The Rabbit Factory into it (that one was a bit of a close call though).
Oh dear, I'm reassessing my whole notion of 'coolness' now! :)
Perhaps relatively speaking - a book (especially an A&B book) has got to look better than The London Lite on the tube...
I stopped reading newspapers. The celebrity pages and opinionated articles make me too angry. I’m now incredibly rubbish at pub quizzes and woefully behind current event - but at least I’m chipper...and I look cool. Apparently
I once went to view a property with only the owner present. We first started chatting when I saw a case of Cloudy Bay in his kitchen. Then I spotted a couple of books and he started enthusing about the one he'd read most recently. It's probably the longest & most enjoyable property viewing I've ever done. After sitting on the sofa chatting about books, it was over an hour before I left. It felt like a great shame that I hadn't liked the property enough in the end, so I didn't make an offer.
Perhaps the presence of books is not a detriment for those over 40 looking for a house/flat? Estate agents, who tend be quite young these days - well, the very eager and energetic ones, anyway - might like to make note of that!
I can't understand friends who have boxed up their books, either when selling a house or settling into one, to make it look more "minimalist". Books do furnish a room, as someone once said! When buying a house we have always been deeply suspicious of houses with no books on display - they look sterile. Dan
Post a Comment