Endless Thread - Sexy spines or literary red flags?

Episode Date: March 20, 2026

Maybe you can't judge books by their covers. But can you judge people by their books? Reddit's bookshelf detectives say yes. Producer Kalyani Saxena guides hosts Ben and Amory through the stacks and offers a picture of her own bookshelf to the Reddit detectives as tribute. r/BookshelvesDetective (Reddit) Started seeing this guy. What does it say about him?? (r/BookshelvesDetective)What do my wife's bookshelves say about her? (r/BookshelvesDetective) What’s his bookshelf say about him? (r/BookshelvesDetective) Snoop our bookshelves! (r/EndlessThread) This episode was produced by Kalyani Saxena and Grace Tatter. It was co-hosted by Kalyani Saxena, Ben Brock Johnson and Amory Sivertson, and edited by Meg Cramer. Mix and sound design by Marquis Neal. *** Sponsor message: INCOGNI: Take back your personal data with Incogni! Use code ENDLESS at the link below and get 60% off annual plans: https://incogni.com/ENDLESS

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WBUR Podcasts, Boston. Amory Seabriton, can you read? Yeah, last I checked. I can still read, although I read before bed, which means I make it two paragraphs and then... That's what happens to me. I never get anything read around here, except for emails from listeners, which we got one recently from a guy named Seamus in Sydney, who told us about a subreddit that caught our attention. Shamis says, hi, team, which I really like. He's on the team.

We're on the team. Everybody's on the team. I love it. I would love to hear you dig into the subreddit bookshelves detectives. Hmm. He says, I love looking at my friend's books when I go to their houses for dinner, seeing what we have in common and the selections that reflect something about their personalities. An episode on this subreddit is an opportunity to talk about the assumptions we make about one another and their accuracy or lack thereof.

All right, so we wanted to look into this, but given our lack of ability to finish books by our bedsides, apparently, we asked someone else on our team who is a huge reader to take the lead. Producer Kalyani, Saxena, please stop lurking in the shelves and get into this conversation. Hi, I'm happy to be here. I'm sorry, I'm late. I had to book it to the mic.

Oh, boy. You spent some time paging through bookshelves detectives, this subreddit. So what can you tell us about what this is and how it works? You post a picture of your bookshelves and no identifying details, nothing else. Just,

the picture and your books, and based on that, people try to guess things about you and your life. I have to say, Kalyani, this sounds a lot like fridge detectives, that subreddit, which, you know, is also popular. If you don't know what fridge detectives is, it's people posting pictures of their fridges and Redditors try to guess things about the fridge owner's life. Koli, how popular is the book version of this? It seems pretty popular. I mean, I don't have a huge frame of reference because I did have to make a Reddit account for this episode. Oh, my God. Get in.

I know. But your book reading is about to nosedive. I hate to tell you. I'll just log my Reddit posts on Goodreads. But it's a pretty popular subreddit. I looked at it today and it said about 54,000 weekly visitors and about 2.9,000 weekly contributions. And those numbers seem to fluctuate like a couple weeks ago. It was lower than that.

but I mean, it's in the thousands. And to me, it makes a lot of sense because I'm sort of a maniac about the way that I organize and create my shelves. I spend a lot of time thinking about it, stroking the like the spines of the books on my shelf. And I'm sure that, you know, other people are freaks like that too. Wow. Stroking the spines. This is, I can tell you're a romance reader, Kalyan. You're spine stroker.

Wow. Okay, so new to the subreddit yourself, new to Reddit, it sounds like, but new to the subreddit. Have you posted your own bookshelf on there yet? I did. I was so excited. I set up my Reddit account.

I took some glamour shots of my shelves. You can take a look at that post if you would like. Oh, I would like. So you two can make assumptions about me and my life. And I got... Oh, I saw this post. Oh, you did? You're probably like, that loser. No one commented on her post. I only got two comments and one person deleted their comment. So. Oh, wow. The color scheme is like black and magenta, which again, to me, screams you're a romance reader, which is great.

Yes. I mean, if you were, if you were guessing, if you were a detective on this subreddit, you would be correct. I actually, the two shelves that I've posted. One is like a curated shelf of like my fantasy favorites. And then the other one is like everything that doesn't fit in that other shelf is stacked on there. But yeah, I have a lot of romance. I have a lot of fantasy. So a lot of colorful. Colorful spines. You got one comment on your post.

This one says a hopeless romantic with a penchant for the fantastic. Does that feel accurate? I think it does. I mean, I definitely am a hopeful. hopeless romantic in the sense that I love, love stories. I love consuming romance. I love talking about romance. I don't know that I'm that, like, fantastical. I don't know if I've got that dog in me, and by that dog, I mean whimsy. I just, I had a big imagination when I was a kid, and now I think I'm a little more cynical. But I do read a lot of fantasy because I think it's

a interesting mirror to our world, even though it is fantastical. I have heard some avid readers say you're not supposed to have anything but books on your bookshelf. Whereas you have, I don't remember who. Maybe we're not friends anymore. Maybe this is what drove us apart. It's a red flag. But like the fact that you have a little Bluetooth speaker and a little stuffed animal and some cameras, that to me is, and a candle, that's more similar to my bookshelf. We're like, there are books, but there's also a lot of, it's where the knick-knacks go to kind of, you know. Exactly. You know, little pops of personality among the books that also contribute to the whole person in bookshelf form.

That's so interesting because for me, my bookshelves are a place to, like, curate vibes. I mean, you can't see it, but at the very top of the bookshelf, there's like a big vintage typewriter that one of my colleagues gave me. And I've got like little frame prints of Boston. Like, it's, to me, it's all about, like, making a space that looks like me, feels like me. And then also, when people come to visit me, I can torture them by giving them a tour of every single thing on my shelf. It's a great personal hobby of mine. So what are some of the other common themes in the subreddit itself? What kinds of posts are you seeing and how accurate are people's?

Well, I guess we don't know how accurate they are. We can get to the accuracy in a bit because I think there's also just, like, so much. many interesting commonalities that pop up if you spend enough time on the subreddit. I mean, I looked through as many bookshelves as I could. And one of the things you see, like, if people have fantasy on their shelves, generally it tends to be like a lot of, I mean, for lack of a better word, like classic older white man fantasy, a lot of George R.R. Martin. Doon is on the shelves.

What? You are the target demographic, Ben. Poppy cop. There's a lot of Lord of the Rings. So many Lord of the Rings. I've actually never read Lord of the Rings. And one thing that's really interesting is that there is, like, you don't, if you see someone who has a lot of fiction on their shelves, people will take it upon themselves to say, like, oh, you should read nonfiction. I mean, I saw one Reddit post where, yeah, there's a lot of, like, morality, or not morality judgments, but more just like, it's like looking at one of these Reddit posts where someone had a lot of Dune, a lot of George R. Martin, somebody wrote.

You're someone who's afraid of individualism. Whoa, dude. Someone who's afraid of individualism and reads what's popular. If this is your entire collection, you should branch out beyond this. It's okay to read something that hundreds of thousands of other people are not reading. Yeah, that feels judgy to me. But what I like is the, I like the idea of Redators like encouraging each other to expand each other's horizons. and like seeing the empty spaces in the bookshelf, you know, from other posters and being like,

you know what, looks like you're reading a lot of acts. You might try branching out in this way. I like that. Totally. I mean, I think you really, there's a whole universe of types of comments, folks saying, like, yeah, you should broaden your reading taste, right? Like, someone's reading a lot of fiction. They're like, oh, well, you only read what's popular. But then you see someone who's reading a lot of nonfiction.

Everyone in the comments is like, oh, well, you're being really performative. That's not. Nobody reads like that. So there is a little bit of a like a, yeah, there's like a jet. It's kind of like a lose lose or like an assumption that if you're reading too much of one kind of thing, you must be one type of person. But then sometimes the guesses get like really crazy and are surprisingly accurate. Let me pull up one of these posts that I thought was so funny. Someone posted their wife's bookshelves and said, what do my wife's bookshelf say about her? And one of the comments said, she loses her car keys a lot and likes going to the zoo. And the person responded, strangely yes. This is accurate. Wow. Like going to the zoo. What gave away the zoo part? Well, somebody asked, somebody asked, how did you figure the first part? And another person replied, not the person who made the original correct guess and said ADHD with little sparkle emojis. So there's like a certain playfulness, I think, that people have. And you're trying to guess like what kind of vibe people have.

sometimes that leads to like random, random guesses, like, you like going to the zoo, and she does. On the one hand, it's kind of sweet that this person posted their wife's bookshelf and, you know, they can share any positive comments that they got and not share any negative ones. But on the other, that feels personal to share, like, I don't think I would post my own bookshelf. So I don't know. I don't want my husband posting my bookshelf. it's actually more common than you would think. People post pictures of other people's bookshelves all the time on this subreddit, including the bookshelves of the people that they're dating. Oh, man, I can't wait to hear more about that.

I'll tell you all about it in a minute. At Radio Lab, we love nothing more than nerding out about science, neuroscience, chemistry. But we do also like to get into other kinds of stories, stories about policing, or politics, country music, hockey, sex, of bugs. Regardless of whether we're looking at science or not science, we bring a rigorous curiosity to get you the answers. And hopefully make you see the world anew. Radio Lab, Adventures on the Edge of what we think we know.

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Recruit new talent. Reach new audiences, whatever your goal, we can help. Discover how the magic is made at WBUR.org slash creative studio. Okay, Kalyani, we're in the show. shelves were amongst the shelves together. And you were telling us about people posting their dates, shelves on the subreddit? Yes. And these are some of the most popular posts that I saw on the subreddit.

I mean, for example, there was one post. The title is, started seeing this guy. What does it say about him? This post has 825 comments. People just love going in on these bookshelves. And on this particular person's bookshelf, you can see a book called Unlocking the Bible and then Watchmen. So there's like a real variety of vibes. Ooh, you can really zoom in.

You really can. You can. You can lock in. And people love posting their potential. partners bookshelves on the subreddit and people love weighing in. There's certain things that pop up again and again. If you're a woman and you're posting a shelf about a guy that you're seeing and he's got like a bunch of self-help and like how to catch a date and money success gym, like all of those books, people are sounding the alarms. Like that sets them off immediately

in the comments. Ooh, this person is a philosopher. Got braiding sweet grass. Yeah. The organized mind. Yeah, definitely a philosopher. But also, what do we think of this stacking technique? We've got, we've got horizontals, we've got verticals, we've got both on the same shelf. This is chaos to me. Like, how are you getting that book at the bottom? That's a big part of the subreddit is people won't just comment on the books on the shelf,

but they'll comment on the way that they're put on the shelf. Like, if you've put all these books in a way that makes it seem like it's hard to get the book out of the shelf, people will say, like, oh, you're not actually a reader. You're like, you've just got this for show. Or, like, maybe your books are stacked like that because your mind is so, like, full and crazy. I mean, it's people will make all kinds of leaps and bounds based on the organization of the shelf, too. So what did people say about this person? Were they like, yeah, stick with this person who owns this shelf?

Or were there any red flags? What's the analysis in these 820? 25 comments. I think people were really struck by like the variety on this person's shelf. Braiding sweetgrass is always a green flag for thoughtfulness. So someone says they had a negative impression, but once they saw that book, they thought he was okay. People love this kind of post. And some folks even try to like reverse engineer the energy. I saw one post that asked like, what are your top green flag books for a single 40 male? And everybody in the comments of that post was like ripping this person to shreds because they thought like this if you if you want to

have a bookshelf like you should actually read the books that you're going to put on it like don't try and source what's the best looking from this subreddit people did not sit well with that post in particular i wonder how long this subreddit has been around february 17th 2021 it's a pandemic 2021 okay that makes so much sense to me because what happened during the pandemic we all started getting on video calls and what was our backdrop are bookshelves. I mean, not so much mine, but I feel like the art of the bookshelf didn't matter as much until everyone started being invited into our virtual spaces. And the bookshelf became the backdrop by which you were judged, like the color scheme, the variety. And so it makes

perfect sense to me that this is a, this subreddit is a pandemic baby. I think you're onto something because, you know, when I was looking into this, it really reminded me of that, I think it was a Twitter account that was like Room Rader that used to rate the backgrounds behind people who would appear on TV online. And this reminded me so much of that. I mean, I think it's like your home is a private space in a lot of senses. But when it's visible, there's a certain like, there's like an added level of a, space in which you're performing that maybe you wouldn't have been before. Hmm. Although I don't know how true that actually is. Because I feel like as a person who's been a reader all my life, I'm always thinking about how my bookshelves look to other people. It's interesting.

It's a lot of it is not like, here's a picture of my shelf. It's here's somebody else's shelves. Tell me more, which I find very fascinating. I'm also seeing another example of this, a snapping a surreptitious photo of the person your dating's bookshelf. And this particular bookshelf, I'll just read some of the titles. I don't know many of these books or the authors, but we've got the art of seduction, mastery, money mammoth, seven habits of highly effective people. Lots of books with money and power in the title. Strength training book.

Bigger learner, nope, bigger leaner stronger. Very different than bigger learner stronger. Tell us what the analysis was of this bookshelf. Yeah, this one was not, the crowd wasn't feeling too hot about this one. I mean, one of the comments says he's not that. curious about the world around him and mostly cares about money. Another person just wrote, girl, run, which is concise.

But, and then, you know, another person said, money, success, bodybuilding. This is an entitled vain individual that is convinced they're smarter, stronger, tougher than everyone else. So, you know, it can be very easy to kill the vibe. If you post a bookshelf of someone you're dating and people are like, I don't like it. But maybe we all have our own set of bookshelf red flags, red bookmarks, maybe. Just dismembering bodies for beginners?

Oh, God. I think I'd be worried about that one. Girl run and call 911 if you see one's show. How to pickle human flesh? Do you have these books? This is getting oddly specific. I need an update on this post. I need to know if this person did run as a result.

Are we getting real results out of this subreddit? Or are we just trying to get an analysis here? For what it's worth, I have scrolled pretty far, and I haven't seen O.P. in the comments at all. So it's possible she ran and she's still running to this day. So I just sent you guys my bookshelf. Okay. You want to take a look? Tell me what you think.

The first title, Ben, I see is Please Kill Me. Please Kill Me is a great book. It's an oral history of the punk scene of New York City in the 1970s and 80s. And also, I think Detroit, it's not as creepy as it sounds. I find it fascinating that you also have a dictionary on your shelves. I don't think I own a dictionary. Really? Well, maybe that's an analog.

That's a reflection of my analog life. I have, my family is always used to have like an open unabridged dictionary in the living room. Just to, because we be looking up words. Because you'd be looking up words. Yeah. I also should admit that I don't have Lord of the Rings on this shelf, but I definitely have Lord of the Rings. I also have like another very like. You have the Hobbit.

Yes, I have the Hobbit. I also have another very kind of like dude-centric sci-fi. The Internet loves this thing, which is Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. But it slaps. It still slaps, I'm just saying. And then I also have The Watchman. Do you have any reading suggestions for me, Kalyani? Well, I mean, if you enjoy-

What are your most judgmental comments? Your most judgmental comments. Okay. All right. I'm ready. This bookshelf, it looks to me like someone who spent a lot of time in the 90s. Like it very much the type of one. That sounds like you were a time time.

How dare you? How dare you, madam? I mean, even the time of words. Needs updating is what you're saying. Meads updating. Needs updating. Needs maybe like one to two more. fiction books.

You haven't read a book since 1992. Well, no, there's where the Craw Dad sing is, I think, the newest book that I can spot on this show. So I'll give you that. Oh, God. Okay, fair. And I do like Watchmen, so I will one more point for that. But I would look at this book and guess, like,

this person has not been to a bookstore. Well, maybe spends a lot of time and use bookstores, which There's nothing wrong with used bookstores. I love used bookstores, but they typically tend to have older titles. That would be my big takeaway. I'm sorry. Here's the other thing that's like hard, right? So I'm married to a librarian.

And so like a lot of books never end up on the shelf because we basically don't buy books in my house. But I've got full on libraries flying through my house at all times. Most of the time they're being read by my wife and my children and not me. because I'm reading Reddit. But I feel like there's, you know, the books that we do have, listen, it's outdated, but it's, you know, there's been some newer books coming in, but the library books. And they sit next to our bed and I don't read them. So.

I mean, I'm a big library reader too. And it's curious to think also about, like, the books that you, you choose to have physical copies of and you choose to have on your shelves. Maybe people gave them to you, but, like, for me, I know that I only buy you. copies of books that I've already read and loved for the most part. Should we start a subreddit that's my library checkout pile? Spoken like a true husband of a librarian. You're working for big library and I support it because you know what?

Libraries need all the love that they can get and deserve all the love they can get. Damn Skippy. So if that gets people to go to the library the same way that the pandemic and bookshelves being in backdrops inspired people to post their. bookshelves and thus maybe care about them a little bit more and invest in them a little bit more. Again, just my theory, but I think it's a good one. Then I'm all for it. I was in a library the other day that was close to where I live, which is far from the subject matter of this.

But they had like a new display up. And it was either called swamp core or like swamp fic. And it was just fiction that just like to place in the swamp. My friend just read an ogre romance for charity. So it exists. It's out there. My friend just read an ogre romance for charity. That's the name of this episode.

I can't say more than that. The rest is a secret. You know what, Kiliani, same. Same. That's the important details. My friend also just read an. If anybody would like me to read an ogre romance for charity, I am available. I'll send you the title.

Ogar romances. We'll do book club after this and it's going to be only Ogar Romances. Love that for us. Oh, man. That seems like a good place to close. Thank you for this. Thank you. Thank you for perusing the shelves.

Perusing the digital shelves of bookshelves to text. and this was joyful and a little judgy, but hopefully in a good way. Thank you for coming to the swamps with me. Endless Thread is a production of WBUR in Boston. This episode was produced by Kalyani Saxana and Grace Tatter, and hosted by me, Amory Severson. And me, Kalyani Saxana, and Ben Book, Brock Johnson. It was edited by Meg Kramer, Mix and Sound Design by Marquise Neal.

The rest of our team is Dean Russell, Chiosna Bernadot, our production manager Paul Vycass, Emily Jankowski, and our managing producer, Sumitajoshi. Endless Thread is a show about the blurred lines between online communities, dusty shelves, and sexy spines. Do you have an untold history, an unsolved mystery, or some other wild story from the internet that you want us to tell? Hit us up, Endless Thread at WBUR.org.

Support for this podcast comes from Is Business Broken? A podcast about the Morotra Institute at BU Questrum School of Business. Follow is business broken wherever you get your podcasts. And listen on for a preview of a recent episode featuring Valerie Thomas, Professor of Industrial Engineering at Georgia Tech, on whether the ocean freight shipping industry can reach net zero emissions by 2050. It's technically feasible. That's a very simple question.

Will we get there? Will it all be deployed? We're going to see. I just want to add in there that, yeah, we've talked a lot about the difficulties for shipping in getting to net zero. This is not the only thing that's going to be going on. Aviation is seeking to do the same thing, maybe even faster, and the other uses of petroleum are all transitioning. You may think, and in some ways that makes the problem even bigger, there are other ways that it makes it easier. Some of the fuels that are used for shipping are very similar to those used for aviation.

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