Can a person be judged by their bookshelves?

I enjoyed this post yesterday on what you can (perhaps) learn about a person from their book shelves. It's funny, because I have two book shelves in the living area of our flat, which I notice many people glancing through when they come over, but I always feel like saying 'all the most interesting books are in my room', where there are two more shelves of the books, and little piles of books in other odd places, that don't get as far away as the living room. Maybe I need to move some of them out to where the sorts who peruse other people's bookshelves can see them ...

All of these words and phrases — alter, become part of you, soul-widening, and cut — say something about what books do to us. They make obligations on us. They force certain reckonings, and we are different after the encounter, sometimes only marginally so, other times substantially.