Tom Gauld | Bluesky
Transcript
A cartoon in which the speech bubbles are categorised by colour.
Panel 1: A man cooks dinner for a woman who is looking at his bookshelves. He calls from the kitchen”I hope you’re not judging me on my bookshelves?” (Blue) She replies “Haha, no!” (Orange)
Panel 2: She takes a book off the shelf and asks “Have you read all of these?” (Blue) He replies “Of course!” (Orange)
Panel 3: she leafs through the book and asks “Can I borrow this?’ (Blue) He replies “Sure, I love lending my books!” (Orange)
The key below explains that Blue represents a question and orange represents a lie.
The question and lie color coded aspect is really interesting! though I really like reading it sans that element, cause then it just becomes a really nice exchange :)
Yeah it makes you read it twice
I borrowed a couple paperbacks from a friend last year (we only get together once or twice a year). He took photos of them. He and his wife have, by their estimate, at least 60,000 books. They added onto their house to shelve them and converted their garage into a “stacks” room.
That’s rather off putting, tbh. I’ve never lent a book hoping it would come back to me. I’m not some dewey decimal dragon jealous of a hoard of knowledge.
If i want to give someone a book, I say I’m giving it to them. If we use the word “lend” I better fucking get it back.
Bad vibes
Guess who’s not getting lent any books…
Maybe it’s as much to ensure that it’s no longer in their collection so they know to buy another should it not return.
I always feel guilty to have books I’ve read and that I liked sitting on my shelves gathering dust. That’s why I proactively gift them.
Strong cartoonist whose work I find dry as toast, usually.
This one was great!
I’m very upfront about which of my books I haven’t read, and I don’t mind lending the ones I already read. I usually have a couple of books in my car to exchange at free little libraries too
Me with the library of Alexandria in .mb:

I hope this is just a funny comic, and not Tom Gauld’s perspectives on books on a shelf.
Books? You mean the shelf trophies for my ebooks/audiobooks?
can’t wait to afford a mocap room to make my own SL video library.🤩
I hope you’re not judging Tom on his perspectives on bookshelves?
How else do you judge someone that made a 3 panel comic about books on a shelf?







