If you were judged based on what you read...

Ever since the Patriot Act gave the government the right to snoop through our library records to see what kinds of books we're checking out (who the hell tracks a terrorist by what they read? What ARE they going to read in America's public libraries that has to do with bombings or hijacking planes?) to see if we're a threat...that freaked my mother out when I got my library card and started going to the library for the first time, it was after 9/11, and there was all this coverage about they can find out everything you read. And she was nervous because at 13 I was big on murder, true crime, Jack the Ripper, Lizzie Borden...none of this says terrorist naturally, but why would that matter to Big Brother of course? I suppose it could still be seen as a potential threat or what the hell ever.

But I digress, if somebody were to look through your library records or see what books you'd ordered online or which ones were in your house...what conclusion do you think they might draw about you?

That I am a helplessly romantic sap!

They would get very, very confused. I have so many DIFFERENT kinds of reading material in my big shelf that they'd be scratching their heads trying to figure out if all the books were indeed mine, or if I had mutliple-personalities, or what.

One thing they'd figure out fast is that I like to take my vacations and am interested in travel.

If the government judged me based on what I've checked out of the library, they'd see I haven't checked out anything but some books on Reagan I had to use for a college report. (And if they expanded their examination to all books, they'd see I don't read much unless it's assigned college reading. )

Well, I read anything that interests me. So I don't think you can peg me by what I read. I do like mysteries and noir. What does that say?

Bluesmama wrote:They would get very, very confused. I have so many DIFFERENT kinds of reading material in my big shelf that they'd be scratching their heads trying to figure out if all the books were indeed mine, or if I had mutliple-personalities, or what.

One thing they'd figure out fast is that I like to take my vacations and am interested in travel.

Aside from the travel thing, this is pretty much my answer too...so much stuff to sort through: true crime, war, biographies, humor, adventure stories, Disney stories, cartoons and comics, science fiction...I believe in having at least one book on most subjects...so to sort through mine you'd find a lot of jumbled stuff: Rambo, Buster Keaton, Wishbone, The Lodger (Jack the Ripper), Atom Bombs, Star Wars, Alfred Hitchcock, monster movies, James Dean, Ghost stories, true hauntings, women's writing, women's quotes, fairy tales, folk tales, plays by various authors like Shakespeare, Sophocles, Kaufman and Hart, UFOs, aliens, WWI and WWII history books and novels, books about movies, subdivided by novelizations and film analysis, WHOLE bunch of different stuff.

That I like Janet, TI, and Gossip.

All I have are magazines with Janet and TI on the cover, and a few gossip magazines.

That I like way too many genres even though I have a preference for horror and historical fiction.

Well, I don't read that many books, just magazines and newspapers (and not too much of them)and haven't checked anything out of the libary since the 20th century, when I had to use that for research.

However,I'm sure Big Bro is watching where we go on the Internet, and would probably find out that I do research on sexuality in general, sexual anomalies and other un-American things like not shaving and not using deodorants.