When you walk into a house you haven't visited and that house has a bookcase visible, do you look to see what's on it? Do you, perhaps, make judgments about the host or hostess's taste based on what you see? (A friend was unimpressed by a gubernatorial candidate's shelves, which ran to Reader's Digest condensed books.) Every Sunday, the New York Times Book Review has an author interview that concludes with "What's on your bedside table?"
If you have a bookcase in a common area, do you take any thought to what's in it? I confess to taking a little: a bias in favor of hardbacks on one table; biographies and letters on a shelf; etc. (And I confess to being slightly flattered that when my son was working from home during the pandemic some of those he Zoomed with were favorably impressed by the books behind him, most of them mine. I did not set up that bookshelf to be a Zoom background.)
What strikes me as odd here is simply the lack of context. If you've read a book, tell me why you read it, and tell me what you thought about it. It's great that AG read The Inimitable Jeeves, but how did it stack up against Leave it to Psmith or Uncle Fred in the Springtime?
