The Sword and Laser discussion
The Nerd Room
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My apartment is my nerd haven, and I display all my books proudly. That being said, I do tend to display my plethora of physics books and literature prominently, while my sci-fi collection is on a side bookcase.All my tabletop rpg books have a special place in my bedroom, where you'd have to hunt to find them. But I still hide them proudly.
Also, growing up in an uber-catholic house left some habits that are hard to break, even in adulthood. I have a fear that my mother will somehow break in and burn my questionable books, so they're safely off to the side.
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However, I read so much on Kindle now that I'm not really buying new books... kind of sad, in a way.
"However, I read so much on Kindle now that I'm not really buying new books"I'm currently purging my paper book collection and not buying new ones. We do lose that browseability you get when entering someone's home and seeing a bookshelf. Our DVDs are all going, too.
Oh yeah, and a secret entrance. My room would have one. Webster instilled that desire in me somewhere deep.
aldenoneil wrote: "Veronica's "embarrassing" book collection was mentioned on the last podcast. I, too, have faced unreasonable demands, like taking down a papier mache, dragon-shaped kite, or removing a solar-power..."Everytime someone mentions bobbleheads I think about how much I want a Fallout one. Need to put that on my gift list for b-day and xmas.
Ix wrote: "That being said, I do tend to display my plethora of physics books and literature prominently, while my sci-fi collection is on a..."Do you subscribe to the Barnes & Noble philosophy that sci-fi is not literature? I suppose that's what's behind all this. One person's literature is another person's "get that shit out of my china display cabinet."
My boyfriend and I want to buy a house next year and both being geeks, but of a different sort, we each want our own rooms to call our own. I want an office with a door I can close (my office right now is the living room couch, ugh). I want to be a writer, but right now I find it terribly difficult to do any of that at home. It would be the perfect writing environment, and my geeky love of books, movies, TV would be on display everywhere.
My boyfriend is an RPG, video game, board game geek, so what he really wants is a room to gather the crew around a big table and play games all night. His big thing is he wants his board games out in the open so one could simply walk over and pick one to play without digging through a closet. I told him I'm okay with the idea of the regular family room becoming that room, as I'm not adverse to open shows of geekdom.
I never felt the need to hide away any of my nerdy artifacts. The lame nature of the 3 Star Wars prequels did get me to put away my action figures, but that was a personal choice. However, Han Solo has made it back into the front window by the front door. What's great about showing off your geeky gear? People actually know what to buy you for Christmas! People can cater to my tastes and get me little dragon knick knacks that I like.
Just having too many books in general! When I was in graduate school and we were rental hopping, I didn't amass a lot of stuff, but now we own a home. A few months ago my husband said he never intended to live I'm a house overrun by books, and I told him it had been nice knowing him. *grin*I have this one space I want to transform into a reading/writing workspace, away from the video games and tv, like Amy the couch is no place to concentrate. Maybe by November when NaNoWriMo comes around again.
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I still really like collecting physical books, nerdly or not, but I have run out of shelf space! So I have joined the Kindle club & most of my new book purchases will be there for the time being.
I don't understand this thread. Nobody has ever thought I'm weird because I read sci-fi.They think I'm weird because I have an entire shelf devoted to religious/mystical texts, including the Egyptian Book of the Dead, Dianetics, and the Prophecies of Nostradamus. Or that I have bunches of medieval literature with titles like the Mabinogion, and the Nibelungenlied, and the Volsungasaga. Or books by guys with hard to pronounce names like Thucydides and Nietzsche.
Sci-fi books are the "normal" part of my collection.
Hmmm. A nerd room. Right now my nerdy books are spread throughout the house and only with a keen eye can you see that the percentage of scifi to "literature" is heavily weighted to the nerd-side. The medieval knight tomb rubbings in the dining room are probably a tip off as well though i try to convince my wife that they are 70's throwback enough to be hipster. The home office needs a serious rethink (summer project) so this discussion has inspired me to concentrate my nerdyness in there.
Veronica wrote: "My favorite future plan is to have my own library in my house, where I can line up all my books and stuff and posters and everything all together. However, I read so much on Kindle now that I'm n..."
That's precisely why I still buy physical books. I had a professor that taught Philosophy of Literature in college. I went to his house once, and he had converted the second story of his house into a library, with sections of floor removed so you could see the full collection from the ground floor. He had the amount of books that a small town library would have, and each book had pencil underlinings and bits of paper on which he'd written notes sticking out of them. The entire residence was bookshelves, a library with a bedroom and kitchen attached.
It made such an impression that I've always vowed to do the same if I ever have the funds.
aldenoneil wrote: "Do you subscribe to the Barnes & Noble philosophy that sci-fi is not literature? I suppose that's what's behind all this. One person's literature is another person's "get that shit out of my china display cabinet."For me, it really depends on the age of the book. I have my leather bound copies of Dune and The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy sitting next to my Shakespeare, Ulysses, and Collected Fictions by Borges. I also consider Bradbury lit.
The books that I put in my side-shelf are works like Elfslayer, my Forgotten Realms books, and anything that I love, but is not critically acclaimed.
My family is very china-cabinet, they put books on the bookshelf for aesthetic purposes only; how the binding looks. I liberated a copy of Baron Munchhausen from their bookshelves of beauty pageantry.
My friends just look at my main bookshelves with a lifted eyebrow and a sigh. They are used to seeing me read Erikson or Martin books one week and maybe Pynchon or Austen the next. (Lately, though, the fantasy is overwhelming the classic literature) So they expect that kind of dichotomy on my bookshelves. In fact a friend just got me Pride and Prejudice and Zombies for me, figuring it was the best of both my worlds.However, when they get to the other bookcase its a different matter. I keep my video games and dvds in that one. Its the anime that stops them in their tracks. I keep telling them Grave of the Fireflies is not a kiddy cartoon.
Geez. I can be a nerd, but not an otaku. So, I do tend to keep my manga hidden.
That being said, there are some fantasy books whose covers are so bad (IMHO) I don't want to display them. For example, to me the artwork for the hardcover Wheel of Time books were just painful to look at. The characters all looked like dwarves. They went to the back of the shelf so I wouldn't have to see them.
my Ultimate Nerd Room would be a library but done up in retro future like something on the Odyssey form 2001: A space odyssey. The bookshelves would contain all my hard Scifi space travel/wars/adventure books. It would also have a retractable ceiling so at night i could stargaze and use my telescope no matter what the temp is outside. The telescope would be a Mead LX90-ACF!
I used to have a poster of the space shuttle taking off but I took it down in the end because my friends thought it was nerdy.Ideally, I would totally have all my books out (I'm still not in the camp of buying digital), my retro gaming consoles all hooked up and the games on shelves instead of lying around in boxes at the back of my wardrobe, probably some TMNT figures kicking about. Posters all framed and whatnot.
Amy wrote: "I used to have a poster of the space shuttle taking off but I took it down in the end because my friends thought it was nerdy.Ideally, I would totally have all my books out (I'm still not in the ..."
I think I also had that poster was the fuel tank white? From the early days of the shuttle program.
I have a wife and three kids. Dude, I can't afford a geek room. That being said: for awhile my wife and I "shared" her china cabinet. She had the top shelves for her Precious Moments figures, and I had the bottom shelves for Star Wars legos! I've since moved some of those to a hutch above my dresser. And I proudly have a Star Wars (ANH) poster hanging in our bedroom. Our only real book shelves are in our bedroom where my Asimov collection is displayed, along with some of my other prized books. But that's about it.Now if I were to post a "money is no object room" description... :-)
Amy wrote: "I used to have a poster of the space shuttle taking off but I took it down in the end because my friends thought it was nerdy.Ideally, I would totally have all my books out (I'm still not in the ..."
You should do like the show Chuck, where Morgan has all his old game consoles on display in a china cabinet, like they're fine art that you don't want touched. (In fact, if you want a nerd room, just watch that show and take notes.)
My girlfriend and I do in fact have a geek room. We are both into video games and action figures and those collections take up most of the walls in our place. I also had to make space for my paper crafting and origami hobbies. I can say though that the set of paper crafted final fantasy class hats looks very nice on their custom stands in our computer room.
Mnchur wrote: "My girlfriend and I do in fact have a geek room. We are both into video games and action figures and those collections take up most of the walls in our place. I also had to make space for my paper ..."You are blessed.
30 plus years of married bliss and having 2 daughters, having a nerd room was always a necessity. Just needed somewhere to go that was a "Progesterone Free Zone". Back in the day, we called it a "Man Cave", but as I look around my current "office" it is pretty much a nerd haven. My wife and are in process of downsizing to a house that is half the size. We custom built a office for both of us, but unfortunately had to each get rid of a lot of treasures to fit. After 6 months I am still trying to fit and even after the built-in's were done, I had to add a "Billy" bookshelf from Ikea for my books :( Had to get rid of so many books, thank god for Powell's and the local free library in town.
Going back one or two years (*cough* decades *cough*) I had a calendar of art work for lord of the rings done by Alan Lee.Where I worked I had access to a colour photocopier which at the time was very expensive per copy - but I copied and blew up the pictures from the calendar and stuck on my wall.
Later when in a relationship my girlfriend laughed and I, being less sure of myself, took them down.
Now married to same lady we came across them in a drawer and she asked "how come you don't put these up on your study?"
Ah well women really do not know how they affect the men in their lives.
Paul wrote: "Ah well women really do not know how they affect the men in their lives. "I dress a hell of a lot better. And I use hair gel.
I consider my whole house to be my nerd haven. Might be why I'm still single... :)
Thomas wrote: "I consider my whole house to be my nerd haven. Might be why I'm still single... :)"Hahahaha I had the same thought. Though I've come to expect and accept that I'm the one my friends come to when they need gadget or video game recommendations...
Of course, one room in my house is super-nerdy, it's got my old PS2 (and admittedly the only games that I still have for that console are Final Fantasy games), most of my books (many of which are of the fantasy and sci-fi genre) and also contains the supplies and storage for my other "girlie nerdy" hobbies, knitting and cross-stitch.
Only my kitchen is nerd-free. Unless you want to call it cooking nerdy.
terpkristin wrote: "Only my kitchen is nerd-free. Unless you want to call it cooking nerdy"Sounds like someone needs to invent a wifi-enabled meat-thermometer so you can monitor your roast while surfing the web. You could even program it to send a tweet when the meat reaches the right temperature.
Then cooking would be nerdy.
They do have "remote" meat thermometers (saw them in Williams-Sonoma the other day) but I didn't look too carefully at them...I really like the meat thermometer I already have. ;)
aldenoneil wrote: "Paul wrote: "Ah well women really do not know how they affect the men in their lives. "I dress a hell of a lot better. And I use hair gel."
I have no idea if I dress better or not however I no longer buy my own clothes - my wife is my personal shopper.
I don't use hair gel. It's been far too long since it could only be called "head polish"
finally got around to reading this thread. You guys have inspired me to clean out my office. It has been being used mostly to store all of our random "stuff" I have been meaning to clean it up for a year now. I hope to make this my summer project and maybe post pics throughout the process. Anybody else want to post pics of their room to give me a little more inspiration?
I think pictures are a great idea, will try to get some up on Flickr soon...
Well, I'm single so my whole house is my nerd haven, but the office is the nerdiest room. It has my books and a bunch of Star Wars collectibles.
This thread reminds me of something I was thinking about the other day- how do geeks and non-geeks coexist in a domestic partnership? I just don't know how that could work out, but I know there are many happy partnerships between nerds and normals, so obviously I am missing something.My husband is almost as big a nerd as I am, so we haven't got conflict over signs of nerddom being visible in our house. In fact I even let him touch my Sputnik alarm clock and the like, if he wants.
My 17 year old son, on the other hand, told me the other day that one of his mates told him he was lame for having a giant periodic table pinned to his bedroom wall- but luckily didn't look behind the door where the Star Trek poster and White Dwarf posters hang. Hee hee.
3 and 7 year old know every word by heart of They Might be Giant's "Here comes Science", and quote them appropriately at non-nerdy kid friends- who look at them funny, but my girls don't seem to notice. As you can see we have solved the problem by attempting to breed an army of uber-Nerds.
I have to deny this concept of nerds hiding books. If you are a nerd, nobody 'gets you' in the first place - it used to be so, in our teenage years? Now nerds are the new 'chic'. Your collections of Mangas, bondage photography books, or simply the Complete Calvin & Hobbes Collection isn't really considered a threat to society?
My nerdiest books are probably some bibliophile issues from 19th century and some strange early 20th century books (one Russian book about metals, another, a schoolbook on becoming a butcher (very nice print on great paper and hand-stitched binding).
I display everything I love proudly, which includes nerdy books and hello kitty dolls. Somehow it is only the mixing of the two that really irks my friends. "Hello Kitty so does NOT belong next to LOTR!"I beg to differ. :)
The Sword and Laser
Books mentioned in this topic
Dune (other topics)The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (other topics)
Collected Fictions (other topics)
Ulysses (other topics)
Kushiel's Dart (other topics)
This is why I'm going to carve out a space when we move, a place where I can feel free to hang posters of fantasy landscapes and maps of the surface of Mars, and wear flannel. Recent movies have labeled something similar a "man cave," but it's obviously not always gender-specific.
How have you been shamed? What would you put in your nerd haven?