[pagansoul]

I come from a family who always had a lot of books around. I don't think my father picked up a book after high school (not counting reading for work). Our home was filled due to my mother. Her mother (my grandmother) did not believe girls should continue school after high school and should go from parents to husband, period. My mother is a very smart woman but could not see past disrespecting her parents wishes so she carried on her education on her own. I have the bad habit of walking into a house and looking for the books to figure out 'who these people are'. I myself and my sisters and brother all have a ton of books in our homes, maybe not too much my younger sisters. I can see the next generations with few books but a lot of digital libraries. One of the first things I got rid of was my old Golden Book Encyclopedia set. I loved it as a kid but had not touched it in 35 years. I also gave away my collection of National Geographic Magazines. I still have a huge comic book and illustrated novel collection and not a few art books. My magazines now are from Zinio straight to my Mac. I have the digital version of 'Cult of Mac' and love it. I wish more picture books (coffee table books) came in a digital format. I maybe have 200 romanic novels and the same amount of favorite science fiction novels in paperback but I pretty much stopped buying them over the last 5 years. There is the odd flea market and used book store purchase but that is nothing like it used to be. I love books but they take up too much space and are a pain when you have to move.

People will have to change their ideas of what a well read house looks like in the future.