Rule one in showing a house is to remove clutter and take away many of the things that will jar someone out of "what would it look like with *my* stuff". (And I've been through this more times than I want to think about.) So, books being personal and easily removed (if they even have any, given the statistic that the average American read *zero* books last year) it isn't surprising that you didn't see any.
It is surprising how many people can't beyond "Yuck! I hate that color of paint, I could never live here!"

For us, if you've noticed there aren't many books in our house either (except cookbooks) - I buy a lot of books and then donate them to the library when I am done with them because I almost never re-read. I also hate clutter and too many books look like clutter to me. In addition, I check out as many books as I can from the library so that I am not spending money on books that I can get for free. This also cuts down on the book collection.

Then, when selling the house, I did consider hiding some of my more interesting books; things on anarchism, buddhism, etc. Don't wan't to turn someone off the house because of my reading interests.

Fritz - I've never had to sell a house, so I've not gone through it. I kinda figured it was something like that. I will totally admit that my house is definitely cluttered and a part of that clutter is books.

Kristin - I've actually been doing a lot more of the whole borrowing, not buying thing too. When nbh was at peanutpress I read a LOT of ebooks. I guess this now falls under, CD's don't appear on my shelves anymore (they're in a box upstairs) because they're now all ripped on my hard drive. I either buy new music online or on the rare occasion I've bought a new CD, I've ripped it and then stashed.

I once heard about a study that showed that kids who live in a house with more than 100 books did better on the SATs. At the time I remember thinking, "100 books? I have more than 100 books in my room, much less my whole house."

Jennifer - Did they classify what books? Would 100 romance novels count? Teen angst novels? :-)

I'd pay *more* for a house with a library in it! Built-in shelves, wingback chairs, desk, sliding ladder for high shelves, leather, wood, and a smoking jacket.

Quite.

CF, I have a feeling that the type of books don't matter so much as books being available, instilling a love of reading, and overall literacy. I just read an article today that children whose parents talk to them alot as infants and toddlers have a larger vocabulary and better reading/literacy level. The vocabulary at age 3 correlates to with language scores in third grade. http://www.boston.com/news/education/higher/articles/2008/04/02/with_babies_words_for_wisdom/?p1=Well_MostPop_Emailed4

Poz, re: A house with a library. That's a dream of mine too, though I'll pass on the smoking jacket.

Poz - yeah, me too. We would not be able to hide our books for a showing....heh. We would have to organize them and remove some chotkes......

And no smoking jacket for me....maybe a kimono.

Donna - It's fascinating how what happens in the first few years of life shapes our future.......

Uh-oh...

*snicker* let the warping begin!

Speaking as someone who has bought and sold several houses, I can tell you why there are no books in view. Realtors will tell you "get rid of the books" because they are distracting. People who don't read are made uncomfortable by as many books as we have. "Have you really read all these books?" is a common question, as well as "Why do you keep all these books?" so they don't see anything past the bookshelves. Book-lovers will start reading the titles instead of looking at the house. Magazines are OK if they aren't too "intellectual" - so People or Readers Digest are fine but Scientific American or Sky & Telescope are right out. -- SoCal mom

People who don't have a lot of books in their home are freaks of nature, as far as I'm concerned. But then, I was one of those hyper-verbal, hyper-literate kids who grew up with books. Lots of books. Like Jennifer, I probably had considerably more than 100 books just in my own room.

My parents were the sort who keep an encyclopedia at home, so the kids will be able to have the references to hand. Possibly the very best thing about teh internets, to me, is the power to goole information to your heart's content.

As you have now seen, our place is still a work in progress, but I don't think there's a room in our house that doesn't have any books in it, normally. Just now, the kitchen doesn't, but that's only because I haven't figured out where my cookbooks got off to. But I think my next project will be to paint my den so I can put up a wall of built-in bookcases.