In my apartment, I have a small credenza sitting under a window that faces north and offers me a stunning view of San Gorgonio Mountain, which, at 11,500 ft., is the tallest mountain in Southern California. On the credenza sits a plant, a photo of Gordon, a tchotchke, a Mexican ironwood (the Olneya tesota tree found in the Sonora Desert) carving of a cactus with an eagle sitting atop it that belonged to my father and is my touchstone to his memory, and eight books. I have not read any of them.

That’s not entirely true. I have “read” all of them. It would be more accurate to say ‘I have not read the physical books sitting on my credenza.’ Given my disability, it is difficult for me to hold a book in my hand, turn pages, etc. Which is why my entire library is on my Kindle, an electronic device known as an e-reader (mine is from from Amazon) that is not only easier for me to handle but allows me to download a book from the Internet (from amazon.com specifically) the instant the idea pops in my head I want to read it. Not only is it convenient, but it doesn’t take up a lot of space and I can take it (and thus my own library) anywhere I go. Just like my entire record collection is on iTunes and I carry it around with me on my iPhone.

Why, then, the eight books on my credenza? One reason – looks.

When I was decorating my apartment, I looked around and noticed something missing. I had plants. I had tchotchkes. I had art on the walls – some of it very meaningful to me, like a stylized lithograph of a duck greeting the start of a new day I’ve had since my very first apartment as a young adult. But the room looked barren. Then it hit me. There were no books.

So I decided I needed to get some books or I would “look” unsophisticated. But why was I making that overly self-conscious value judgement? Surely it’s more important to read a book than display it. And I consider myself pretty well read. My Kindle “library” could fill several bookshelves. But I’m an American, and in America image is everything. The novelist F. Scott Fitzgerald realized this over a century ago when he critiqued the shallowness of the super-rich on Long Island, near New York City, via his character, Jay Gatsby, who lined his shelves with books in order to project a cultured image of himself. Yet the books were “uncut” and had never been open let alone read. At Gatsby’s party, one partygoer describes the shelves (that he had originally thought were cardboard facades of books) as “a triumph. What thoroughness! What realism! Knew when to stop, too – didn’t cut the pages. But what do you want? What do you expect?” The books in The Great Gatsby are a metaphor for an America where you can be famous for nothing more than being famous – like Paris Hilton or the Kardashians.

I carefully crafted and curated my little collection of books. Crafted in the sense that height and color of the spine or dust jacket either ruled a book in or ruled it out. As for the titles themselves, I remember thinking, “if I died tomorrow and they’re cleaning out my apartment, what would I want these books to say about me?” So I chose “gay” authors like Thomas Mann and Gore Vidal (although both would identify as bisexual) and Proust, because Proust communicates literary sophistication – I almost went with Finnegans Wake by James Joyce, but I couldn’t find a “right-looking” volume that met my aesthetic criteria.

In this new millenium of constant screentime, there is social capital to be gained by simply looking as if you are a cultured person who listens to music on vinyl and reads lots of books. But you don’t need to go to the lengths I went to. Creating an aesthetically pleasing bookshelf has never been easier – you can even do it online in an afternoon! – thanks to an increase in booksellers who trade in “books by the foot.” In fact, that is literally the name of one of those booksellers’ websites – Books by the Foot – which claims, “Prices start at $12.99 per linear foot … Whether you need 1 foot or 1000, with over 5 million books on hand we can do it!” Choose from distressed vintage, modern, hardcover, paperback, children’s books, and even vinyl LPs. Need a particular accent? No worries, they sell by color too. And by subject. And by size or arrangement (such as “stacks and bundles”).

The things in one’s home show one’s interests. This modern trend allows you to show what you would like people to think your interests are. And yes, it’s phony and shallow, but is it any more so than on social media or through a person’s clothing choices by which people are often trying to present the version of themselves that they would like to be true, rather than what actually is true?

It’s easy to look down our noses at people who fill their bookshelves with books they’ll never read – but in reality haven’t we all got lots of books on our shelves (or on our e-readers) that we haven’t read? In Japan, they even have a word for it – tsundoku: acquiring books with the best of intentions but letting them pile up without reading them. I don’t know. Originally, my goal was aesthetic: how did my apartment look? It turned into something more image conscious: what do I want to say about me with my little collection of books?

But isn’t your aesthetic – your clothes, your car, your residence – all part of the image you’re projecting?