Books in Bookshelves

[crystalgecko]

I've read in several places that bookshelves have a maximum number of books they can hold, and I see some people implying they can hold more books but only show X number of books in the "read..." option.

I bought The Book Corral for one of my sims, along with some extra skill books (cooking 2 & 3, gardening 1, 2 & 3), and put them on the bookshelf, but my sim could not choose to read any of them. After discovering the above, I tried removing existing books from the bookshelf, but even with only three of its own books and the extra skill books the extra books never seem to show up.

I can't seem to find any explanation for this, is it the case that the shelves can only display the books they came with, and other books need the bookcase "opened" to get sims to read them? Is my game bugged? (Probably yes to the latter, as since I installed Island Paradise I can't even play the game without NRaas Overwatch)

[MrsFlynn]

If I'm understanding your question correctly, what may be happening is your Sim maybe above the skill level to read those skill books.

For example, if your Sim has a cooking skill of 8, the cooking skill books won't be available to read. This is the same with all the skill books.

[crystalgecko]

Sadly being overskilled isn't it, it was a brand new sim, and I had just bought the three gardening books to get her a head start on her garden. She skilled to level one by reading Gardening 1 after I took it back out of the bookshelf and told her to read it from her inventory.

I wonder if maybe it's only allowed to have X number of skill books and Y of non skill books, I'll have to try swapping out a skill book for a skill book and a story for a story when I get home.

[MrsFlynn]

I don't think it's because the bookshelf only allows X number of skill books. As in a few of my games I have a community lot that has a bookshelf that has almost all of the skill books, and my unskilled Sims can see all the books and choose to read them.

If you haven't already, you may want to try a new save - as a test to see if the issue is happening in a new save.

[crystalgecko]

I guess my game's being weird then, I tested with about 5 bookshelves, taking a book from each that had not been generated in the other and swapping them. It seems that all of my bookcases will only show the exact books that came with them, and if you take one out it shows one fewer books, even if you add 3 different ones.

Oh well, it's not like it stops me from storing the books, and it's not *that* much harder to use "open bookcase" than "read".

[Deklitch]

I tend to bypass book shelves altogether in my games

I do a square room, nothing on the inside, of about 7 by 7. Once I have purchased the skill books, I lay them out on the floor of that room in a spreadsheet format, grouped in skills to be trained (ie Cooking I, II, III) then as some sim needs to be trained in a particular skill, I drag it out and give it to them to read, and then return them to my 'library' afterwards. It drives neat freak sims crazy, but it works for me and I do away with dealing with bookcases altogether (And if it is intended to be a unique skill for a sim, I sell the books afterwards, so I don't accidentally let another sim read that skill book.

[crystalgecko]

Haha that sounds like a rather efficient method, I'd try it myself, but I think I have the "neat" trait too