I had the opportunity to visit Deerfield Academy a while ago with my daughter as she was visiting a former school friend of hers. Abbey had finnagled a way to spend the night on campus, which I was not averse to, but I had to wait on approval for me to leave her. I was invited into the faculty quarters of the dorm she was staying at. The dorm master’s husband introduced himself to me and kindly worked through the approval process. During the visit our conversation turned to the books he had in his living room. He said he and his wife owned over 4,000 books and, of course, didn’t have room to display them all. The ones on his living room shelves were a select set that conveyed a broad sense of what was important to him and his wife’s life. I perused his book shelves while he stepped out of the room for a dorm hall check. One shelf was filled with books on archaeology and near eastern history. Another had hard bound copies of classical authors and playwrights. I was able to engage in some enjoyable conversation with him, a stranger up until that evening, upon his return, based on what I had seen. He seemed easily pleased I had taken the time to review his collection and express interest in certain topics dear to him and his wife.

This experience got me to thinking about how the living room of the future may change. With books disappearing into Kindle Readers, Barnes & Noble Nooks, iPads, etc will there come a day when books on shelves won’t be part of the domestic landscape? Will this depersonalize the private living spaces of people we visit? What social queues will we begin to rely on instead of books to generate a sense of who people are? Does this really matter?

My wife and I are avid readers. Each of the major rooms of our home — living room, family room, kitchen and all the bedrooms — have book shelves brimming with books. That being said I can count on one hand the number of new hard or soft bound books I have purchased over the last four years. It’s not that I’ve stopped reading, I just get them through Amazon and read them on my Kindle account. New physical book purchases have become a rarity and highly selective process for titles we feel are keepers or represent coffee table heirlooms.

For someone entering our living room today the books on our shelves represent a lost moment in time some five or six years ago before we stopped purchasing real books. The room’s collection is not continuing to evolve as we evolve in our tastes and values. When our children settle down and furnish living rooms of their own will they include books in them? I am afraid they won’t. Without shelves what will they adorn their walls with? What will these decorations say about them that a couple hundred books might have said instead?

What we wear is a statement about who we are and what we value. What we drive, or don’t drive, can be a statement of who we are and what we value. The music we play makes a statement as well. How we decorate our home is a statement of who we are and what we value. Without books on display I feel it may be harder to get to know someone. In addition, there is a certain aesthetic richness I feel when I enter a room full of books. It feels more engaging, more intimate in some way. Without shelves of books showing a variety of book spines of varying heights and colors I fear there will be some diminished enjoyment in the room’s décor.