Why do the Dutch love their bookcases so much?

The Dutch have an unhealthy love affair with their bookcases. It's not a very well known fact but then again it's not something that's spoken about very much either.It's sort of like that uncle that's not invited to Christmas dinner anymore. It was something that I noticed when I first got there. My girlfriend and all her friends were students and they all had their tiny little flats and their bookcases. Some of these rooms would be 12-15 square meters and would have a big ass bookcase on the only wall available. Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against bookcases, I have two myself , it's just that the Dutch make such a big deal out of theirs. It's almost like the room is there for the bookcase instead of the bookcase for the room. The bookcase is almost always the centerpiece of the room. Alternativly, the Americans make the TV the centerpiece of every room of the house so I guess that's probably worse. The other thing is the bigger the house, the bigger the bookcase. It's almost like, once you get a bit sucessful you go out and get more books but then you need a bigger bookcase but your new bigger bookcase won't fit in your room so you end up needing to move into a bigger place etc. etc. In my time in Holland, I've seen some big ass bookcases my friend. Scary big. Like your glad that they are on the ground floor big. Luckily too, they have no qualms about using some endangered tropical hardwood to make sure their shelves don't collapse. (I'm just kidding about that last one, but the Dutch ARE the 2nd largest importer of tropical hardwood in the world behind Japan. Where's all that wood going?). So to me it was no surprise that I was able to find this website. As a matter of fact, I knew before I started looking on Google that I would find something like it. Actually, there are probably more but I quit looking quite quickly. Too easy. For you non-Dutch speaking readers, the website is dedicated to showing off peoples bookcases. My reasearch has indicated that typically these bookcases will contain some,if not all, of the following books: Donna Taart's The Secret History, David Susskind's Perfume, Umberto Eco's In the Name of the Rose, Salman Rushdie Anything but The Satanic Verses (too cliche) probably Midnight's Children( and probably only half read), Gabriel Garcia Marquez either 100 Years of Lonliness or Love in the Time of Cholera, Khalil Gilbrand's The Prophet, Roald Dahl anything and probably bought at a book market or second hand store, and Connie Palmen's IM (ladies only).There will also be some art books or a book on architecture and then a few leftover university books from whatever chosen profession their bookcase owner has chosen. Remember, this list will be 8 years old as I left Holland in 2001 but I'll stand by it. Just as a sidenote: one of the owners of the meanest bookcases I've ever seen used to read a book 4 or 5 times in a row just to make sure he didn't miss anything. He wasn't thick or anything he was actually probably one of the smartest most respected intellectuals I've ever met, but there is no way I'm reading the same book twice never mind 4 or 5.