The Top 40

The furniture is fake, too. The last time---the only time---I was in an IKEA store, I nearly had a nervous breakdown because I couldn't figure out how to get OUT of the store. And my husband made me promise that I would never, ever, forever and ever amen---ask him to go to IKEA again.

Going to IKEA is like going into the surreal. With Lingonberries. Serious people don't speak Swedish, ever. Or any Scandinavian language. But especially Swedish. IKEA puts silly names on their ready to haul to the curbside for immediate trash pickup stuff.
Leaving the IKEA in Conshohocken PA and trying to go west was our ordeal. My husband was cursing in Swedish, I think.

Deborah and Jewel,

I think whether you like or despise IKEA and all its works depends on what you expect of its products.

If you're looking for something that will last for all time, and be proud to hand down to your descendants, you're barking up the wrong tree.

If you're looking for something inexpensive, and is of surprisingly good quality for the price, IKEA's your store.

Most of the furniture in my humble abode (a too-small apartment) is from IKEA, the bookcases and shelving units especially (I have an inordinate fondness for books on electronics and electrical engineering, pre-1960).

IKEA makes a bookcase called "Laiva". Don't ask me what "Laiva" means, as I don't care. I do know that they're inexpensive at $25 each, are reasonably-sized (given my lack of room) and hold a bunch of books. Did I mention that they're inexpensive? That's important here in the People's Democratic Republic of Maryland, as I do not have (and will not take) a job in the hive down the road a piece, and all the over-paid drones hereabouts are bidding the prices of things up, up, up...... but that's a rant for another day.

Yeah, so you have to assemble the furniture. Some people are intimidated by the thought. Me, I wander through the electrical department in IKEA, and think of all the nifty things I could do with stuff like their "Jansjo" LED desk-lamp. (OK, so I'm a little weird-- I also look at Home Depot's plumbing department and ponder all the nifty antennas I could build out of copper pipe and brass fittings. Ah, the burdens of being an electronics/ham-radio geek.)

As for IKEA stores being hard to get through.... yeah, there is a certain rat-in-a-maze effect, but there are short-cuts to the exits if you know where to look.

And as for the IKEA in Conshohocken being very hard to get to or get out of, I have to agree with you on that, Jewel. I've been there, and I was cursing, too. The IKEA in White Marsh (just east of Baltimore) is much easier to get to-- the builders of the shopping center and surrounding area actually had the space to lay out a proper road network. Plymouth Meeting / Conshohocken, not so much.

I don't actually have any problem with most of the products IKEA sells. Some of their sofas are ugly in a postmodern sense, but of course, people will like them regardless. We were talking about the ordeal of shopping there. And it was an ordeal, for the uninitiated.

Just FYI, the Bible is far and away the most published book in history, and every year as well. Every year, on average, around half-billion (five hundred million) are published... in nearly every language on earth.
But I do understand your wonderment at the huge amount of catalogs this company generates. I am a retired book printer and have witnessed tremendous change in publishing.

My spouse and i cannot feel you have mentioned such evident information, nutrients the following, appreciate your offering this.