The value of owning more books than you can read (2018)
bigthink.com
bigthink.com
The thing is though... we've read nearly all of them between us. We probably have only 2% unread at any given time. That's still a good stack of options to read next, still a whole shelf we haven't touched.
For time, books feel denser and richer compared to TV and most films. Only music and poetry feels as dense and rich.
I wish I could say that there was order to our shelves and there was once several orders! Some parts are by publisher, some parts by theme! Mostly we buy books and add them where there is space.
As to wishlists, we purchase when we see things we want and we're not using wishlists. The things we order tend to be obscure and rare - not valuable, just obscure - so if we don't get them at the time we might not see them again. There's something nice about this... books arrive constantly, and that means there's always something exciting to discover.
Edit: https://www.librarything.com/ is invaluable. We initially got it to help us catalogue things for insurance purposes, but it proves extremely helpful at preventing us from buying the same book twice. Most recently published books only need their barcode scanned or ISBN entered, only the old ones need manual entry.
If form can give rise to function, and I believe that it can, then this post and all the forums and blogs in the world serve a purpose totally at odds with the purpose of physical books. So.. I envy your library and hope you'll keep adding to it, and pass on your reverence of it.
For me it's rather it gives them presence rather than permanence. A book on a shelf is filling a space. It's visible. It's available for anyone to have a look. A book on an eink device is hidden. It's invisible. It's barely accessible. You could have thousands of books on an ebook reader and nobody would know it, because they can't see any of it.
The warm, larger display is a game changer for me.
What does this mean?
https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&q=kindle,e...
I wonder what it is about the folks who are able to "get into" eBooks. Logically, I know all the value props -- great for travel and general minimalism, easy to highlight and search highlights, better for the environment, etc, etc -- but, for whatever reason, I just can't get my brain to do the thing.
On balance, I think I'm okay with it. I spend an enormous portion of my real-estate budget on books, and, frankly... what else would I spend it on? That's one of the key things that it's for, if you ask me.
If you view a book as a one time use, disposable good, it's not hard. That sounds far more disrespectful than I mean it, but if you're the type of reader that's reading many things for pleasure (possibly multiple books a week) and will likely only read them once, they become more like I might view a TV show: something I want to consume conveniently and not necessarily catalog permanently. In that case, eBooks are great.
I primarily use e-readers for reading pop fiction. I'm not bothered by their lack of physicality or impermanence for the same reason I don't have a problem with the impermanence of broadcast television; it's mass-market content meant to be enjoyed and forgotten.
Thanks! One small part of the great mystery of the human condition, resolved. ;)
I usually take a highlighter and a pen to most books these days. Interesting passages get marked up; the margins are perfect for capturing the related thought, realization of a tie-in to another book, and whatever else; and the growing forest of dog-ears helps me find my way back to harvest all the notes later.
(I'm actually really bad at going back and harvesting the notes into a useful digital format -- but I guess the presence of all of them on my bookshelf gives a nice safety blanket, you know? They're there, waiting for me.)
I feel a similar bit of anxiety as you when it comes to fancy furniture though. I learned a few years ago that it makes sense to buy the good stuff -- but the question is looming in the back of my mind as I prepare to move again in a few months. The boxes (of books and everything else) are perhaps easier because I know I can move them myself and treat them gently, but I worry much more about the furniture getting roughed up during the journey.
Probably related to life phase: my parents picked very different furniture after kids moved out. Expensive with crap quality by design - eg. slanted legs under a chair while plenty in the family are on the heavy side.
The former is a mix of books that screw with the format (House of Leaves, S.) or graphic novels (Understanding Comics, Rise of the Ogre, Watchmen). The latter is mostly just formative fictions books for me (I've lent out Snow Crash ten or so times, I should really replace my copy).
For the cost of one episode of Game of Thrones, you could publish hundreds of books. Even cheap garbage like reality TV costs enough per episode to publish several books (through a real publisher, would be even more if you count self-publishing).
It's like a slow version of having a drink or weed to get mildly randomized and form new ideas you would/could never while sober.
It's like the difference between directed and basic research. You need them both.
So the ordered bookshelf is necessary if you know what you want. It's a database.
But the unordered bookshelf is maybe not strictly necessary but certainly facilitates when you don't know what you want, or you don't even have a want but are simply open to seeing what happens for a bit. I cannot have a novel idea through intention, it must be instigated by something random.
After a relative died, I was in their house while it was being cleaned up. They had a huge library of books, but a lot of them were unreadable because of mold/mildew and other issues (not just the typical lovely old book smell). It was such a pity.
As for what happens after our death, entropy by bureaucracy... the Crown will get the whole estate and eventually will figure it out. No living relatives, so who knows... not our problem.
Just out of curiosity, what will the Crown do with such inheritances? Do they distribute it amongst their network or something?
unfortunately books are one of the most annoying things when you move.
I used to own a quite large stash of them, in the hundreds, not thousands, but started moving a lot, like every 6 months and I began hating them. Now they all live inside boxes in the basement of my house. I don't think I'm going to take them out anytime soon.
https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/43290-we-love-to-buy-books-...
"Buying books would be a good thing if one could also buy the time to read them in: but as a rule the purchase of books is mistaken for the appropriation of their contents." -- Arthur Schopenhauer
https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/arthur_schopenhauer_12105...
The man had a 5-bedroom 2500 sqft house, basically full wall-to-wall and floor-to-ceiling with books and magazines. Most of them were clearly unread.
Getting rid of all of the books was a big effort. Both physically and mentally. Turns out that not too many too many places want to take a bunch of obsolete computer books, and we didn't have the luxury of a couple of years to sell them all on Amazon or something.
It was a burden on all of us. Image a week-long bucket brigade from upstairs and downstairs. Every armful got heavier and heavier.
In the end, most of them went into the dumpster. Probably $100k worth of books purchased over the years, all obsolete and rotting in a hoarder's trove. I'd guess a couple of tons by weight.
I was really struck by the waste of it all, and it's dramatically altered my perception of owning books.
If you buy too many books, remember - your habits will eventually become somebody else's problem to deal with. You could be doing anything else with the money instead of wasting it on dead trees that somebody will eventually just have to throw away.
It was better than our netflix/amazon/audible/disney/spotify/pandora/... media subscriptions.
At least then, he wouldn't have left us with a huge problem to deal with in his wake.
There is absolutely no way to turn someone else's pile of books that you don't approve of into any kind of harm done to you. Not even through this route of death and bequest.
Sell the house for whatever it fetches wothout laying a finger on it. Then the horrible books are not your problem.
Oh, you want to extract more money from the sale? Or you want to use it yourself? That is still not his obligation. You are essentially saying you wish your parent gave you more, but trying to twist it into somehow they cost you something.
Listen to yourself!
Honestly, this rant of yours isn't a good look.
it's unfortunate that you got saddled with the cleanup of so much stuff.
A family member died and it took the nearest living relative ~ 1 year to empty, clean and prepare the house for sale.
There are just some all time classics and fiction that struck me the right way at the right time, but I won't read most fiction a second time, so why keep em?
To me, the ability to pick up a book and just start reading is amazing. Also, my wife is excellent at picking books for me, (better than me!) so it’s a sort of family activity.
P.S. I have far, far, far more books than I could possibly read.
When I own a physical copy of a book, I can highlight things that stand out, jot down notes in the margins, add book darts to the pages where I want to quickly reference upon re-reads, etc. All of those things add a unique history to my particular copy of a book.
For me, it's always a joy to buy a used book that has been marked up like I tend to do. There may be many copies of that book, but there's something special about my copy—a shared experience with the previous owners.
Sure, an e-book can allow for bookmarks, highlights, and notes, but for some reason it just doesn't feel the same to me. It could even be argued that e-books provide a better experience for revisiting previous notes because of the search functions and the ease at which you can see markings, but there's something just... different about it.
E-books lack the same personality that I find my physical books to have. I certainly have a fair share of both e-books and physical, but for every inconvenience that the physical copies have, there's something special about them to me still.
Perhaps the inherent flaws with the physical manifestation of the books makes them inherently more relatable to me? A simple reminder that just as people are flawed, things can be too.
Maybe I'm just stubborn, but a lot of what I enjoy about marking up a good book is the feeling that comes with it, and the Remarkable 2 just isn't quite as... visceral? Not really sure how to articulate the feeling but I definitely appreciate the suggestion! Great piece of tech!
The one thing I admire about my father-in-law are his books. He is into literature with lots written and published and still continuing to help other authors at 80+ years of age. I always have seen him amongst books and has a room full of books on the walls, floor, tables, and everywhere. His focus is specifically on folklores from around the world. He know where to go in USA or UK and buy very specific rare books (mostly used). I'm pretty sure he has read thousands and thousands more still unread in his library. He once sent me on an adventure looking for a specific library in Austin, Texas and see if I can buy/steal a particular book. I finally got someone ship a used copy to California, then to India.
I like the idea of having unread books around that I know I can read, and others that I can re-read. I'm, however, unsure if this is good or anything advantageous than anyone else that just reads what they want to or need to.
But one thing I do differently is that I put a couple books in each place that I frequent. A couple in the living room while hanging out with my family, a couple in my office while a slow day at work, a couple in my bedroom for before sleeping, and a couple in a bag/car in case I don’t drive.
I’ve found the benefit of surrounding myself with books in this way to make it always guaranteed I will pickup one and read. I think this is different than having an expansive library or piles of books in a room.
This helps me read roughly 1-2 books a week and I simply order a new one to replace the book from the respective stack. I’m not a huge DNR person because it makes little sense nowadays that you can’t know enough about a book prior to buying it.
I source an extensive backlog of books I’m interested in and rank them by a loose definition of up to 5 star priority based on my interest when I log them down.
I feel like we are so spoiled to be able to source very good books and not waste our time with mediocre ones.
I have in my house perhaps 42 square meters of bookshelves full of books, sometimes books behind books. Books that I will never read (old books about mouth surgery that I don't know what are doing there). I read what is considered a lot, but it is impossible to read all, and not all topics in my library, made with books from my grandparents (mostly history and engineering) my mom (arts and history) and dad (that is a collector of "things", books are one of those things)
Lately I started to buy roleplay books, physical ones and during pandemic, PDFs. I think I will never have the time to play everything I bought.
Going back to Taleb arguments summarised by Popova.., yes I think that walking in a library feels like staring at the universe and feeling how little you are, how amazing are those worlds (the books) and how exciting is planing the next adventure. You reads a lot, but still are more to read. And the hungry grows then.
I think Socrates beat him to it by a few years.
</snark>
These days, once I read a book, I usually divest myself of it unless it's absolutely amazing or I need to refer to it. I found out my neighbor has made a living by writing, and his house is full of books. It fits his personality as a historian. But I love my mostly bare, white walls. Keeping so many books around would feel to me like keeping a bunch of tabs permanently open in the browser -- ick!
'Tis a shame it cost us our civilisation.
8 billion people with 30,000 books each... I'm trying to math it...
Assuming that each book is a fairly narrow .75 inches and your shelves have 8 layers vertically, you're going to need 234 linear feet of shelves. Assuming your shelves are 3 feet apart with six inches on each side for the shelves, you need 468 square feet of floor space dedicated exclusively to book shelves.
That's roughly equivalent to each person in the US using their entire living space for books. I'm pretty sure worldwide, most people would need more than their entire living space.
It's dreadful browsing a book store and wondering how many of those books are a waste of paper, worse still a waste of time.
There's more to be said about the "aesthetic" of books, both from the author's and reader's sides. And today it seems that a book's content isn't the only thing that matters; Or for some authors (particularly in tech) book sales aren't the main goal, neither something more altruistic. For them a book is validating their "authority" in the field, a strategic move.
I'm sure someone would make the case for subjective and objective values of a book, and they'd be right in an universal sort of way. What I yearn for is a way of knowing which books are valuable to me in a practically endless supply. Therein lies the rub because a book is a bigger time sink than a song, movie, or video.
Then when I want to read one, I buy it. Then I read it.
I admit sometimes I hate a book so much I don't finish it and buy another, but I don't think that's the kind of unread book being talked about.
Maybe it's not nonsense, actually, is this article just some kind of post hoc justification for impulse buying tons of books?
> [...] studies have shown that book ownership and reading typically go hand in hand to great effect.
So, you are unaffected by this claimed phenomenon, good for you; but you haven't really debunked the claim either.
And possibly the physicality of a dead-tree library carries this effect more forcibly than an online shopping list.
Pardon my latin.
In the past I collected half-read books.
Now I collect little cards, each with a book title and author written on it.
Ordering online is only a search and click away.
But unread books are useless for this purpose unless they are dictionaries or references. And surely there is no point in keeping them in your own home. A proper place to keep unread books is a public library.
It takes about 10 minutes and it's well worth it.
Unread books seep in through osmosis. That unread book that's been sitting there for years, somehow, magically, its content feel familiar when you do pick it up.
Honestly the only downside about the space they take up, which I dont really feel like is a downside if you have a little space and nice shelfs, is that moving a lot of books is terrible.
Smartphone books only work for books that are meant to be read from page 1 to end.
I think you're bringing up an edge case. Fiction and non-fiction books tend to be meant to be consumed front to back. A better edge case would be books with heavy endnotes, but honestly, those are handled better on my Kindle than with a physical book too.
Free, easy to lift, easy to stack, and it saves the books from damage.
Second-hand booksellers who visit bookfairs swear by these boxes.
It's all the fiddly little things that take time (do I even need that) or things that need to be well protected - glasses etc. And things that you frequently use and deliberate over whether you need again before the move.
Pretty sure the densest box that I had in my last move was the one where I had all of my books.
True. But then you have to make the hard choices of what to keep, and it's better to do that on a regular basis to avoid being a book hoarder.
That means that the smart thing to do is buy them as you read them, and not hoard them.
And this is one of the major benefits of e-books: you can postpone the purchase until about 15 seconds before you want to read the book.
Can also be done at bookshops.
That doesn't track with my experience at all for a number of reasons:
- Smaller bookstores who may or may not be an official part of the publishing supply chain stock smaller amount of copies of a given book. Once an edition sells out, they might not even have the means to restock/order from a new batch of printing.
- Even big chain bookstores have to consider supply and demand economics when stocking their shelves so even them can't guarantee "perpetual availability" of a title.
- Not to mention, books go out of print, even way before they go in the public domain. The best way to get a copy is by accident in a thrift shop. If I encounter one I really like, the best move for me would be to buy it then and there, my current reading queue be damned.
- Admittedly, acquiring books is easier now due to Amazon, et. al., but we are still very from from being able to acquire a book when you actually want to read them. Not all books are available to buy online!
The point is that them being present in your library serves as a physical reminder that you might want to read them (whereas otherwise you’d forget about them), and when you decide you want to read them, you can then do it instantly. As others have noted, it also avoids the problem of books having gone out of circulation.
My cure is to maintain a single shelf of books that I own. Just one shelf. Either a shelf inside a book case or a long shelf that stretches a wall. But either way, once it fills up, you have to being replacing. Can't just go to every book sale and buy mercilessly.
Why?
1. Books are way more permanent than Kindle's terms of service, PDFs require fragile digital storage either locally or through a cloud service, etc.
2. I refer to things I read years or even a decade after reading them, and sometimes need a refresher
In addition to these, I have classics, scifi, novels I found interesting, and loads of pop-[field] introductory readings for my children to enjoy.
It is awesome to hear a six year old talk about what they read in "A Brief History of Time" and let their unbound curiosity and imagination try to expand their understanding of the universe.
My parents, somewhat hoarders at that stage of life, had years of Readers Digest and National Geographic when I was young. Having access to decades of print materials that most today would minimalistically confine to the rubbish bin set the direction of my life for exploration and discovery.
One such study found that children who grew up in homes with between 80 and 350 books showed improved literacy, numeracy, and information communication technology skills as adults.
80-350 books is not what the article is about, it's about owning more books than you can read. I assure you, you can read 80-350 books, and I assume that almost everyone commenting here has done so.
> The study, led by Dr. Joanna Sikora of Australian National University, found the greatest gains in adult literacy, numeracy, and ICT skills when a home had from 80 to 350 books — no additional gains were seen above that number.
I’ve taken the recommendation to own books further and now I own books in languages I don’t speak. Time to read those books is quadratic I guess (French might be easier to learn, I’m not too sure about Koine Greek). My girlfriend doesn’t like it when we walk by the Seine or Tiber (or in fact any river full of indie booksellers) because somehow I’m able to convince myself that this time, just this time, I’ll read these books immediately. Never happened.
I’ve devised a rule to calm myself in the meantime: I prioritize reading books of dead authors (figuratively they finished speaking). For authors still living, the book should have been published minimum ten years ago. For me, it’s a great sign that the book will survive a hundred years or so. I’ve seen way too many books expire after a year or two of publication (e.g. all the books on Trump during his administration).
But what other tools can we use to remind us of our own ignorance. Is there a less volumetric solution that would work as well?
We used to have a big book collection and we still have a lot of books in the house. But I switched to kindle about eight years ago and my wife about three years ago. So now our house is decorated with all the books we read or meant to read about ten years ago.
I have no physical books, but lots of ebooks. I sometimes like to open up Calibre and stare at the unread ones and pick what to read next. When there's nothing unread in Calibre I'll go to Goodreads (want to read list).
On the topic of books, my reading effectively stopped when I started reading an "entered the public domain" piece from the kindle app. Without realizing that in print it would be a one foot anthology. Unwilling to give up but also unwilling to press on. Wouldn't have happened in print.
1. the actual physicality of the book ensures that I will not forget it. It is literally there on the shelf. 2. I used to LOVE libraries as a kid. As an adult with a very specific set of interests (computers, ecology, typography), I am usually frustrated by the selection available. What I have now is basically my ideal library, right here at home, and no one is going to bug me about writing inside the books or returning them late. The selection is vast and carefully curated, and I am guaranteed to come out of it delighted when I decide to borrow a few books.
Because of that, I also print out and ring-bind a huge amount of PDFs and articles and "in-between" books, to be able to put them up on shelves too.
For example, I wanted the other day to do some writing about the fundamentals of software performance, and I gathered the following books, which I plucked for the stuff I needed:
- computer systems - bryant & o'hallaron
- bpf performance tools - gregg
- systems performance - gregg
- every computer performance book - wescott
- sql performance explained - winand
- computer organization and design - hennessy, patterson
- computer architecture - hennessy, patterson
- algorithms - sedgewick
- understanding software dynamics - sites
- design of data intensive applications - kleppman
- graphics programming black book - abrash (why not!)
There is no way a public library would have them all in stock. I also would have had to go there, carry the books back or study on site.
all of these books had various amounts of marginalia, folded corners, printouts of papers laid in. This physicality gives me a lot of context information. I often do the same kind of "study session" with PDFs, and it's not hard to find "library" sites online, but it feels much less "intentional" to me.
edit: It's probably also an education thing. My grandfather was an art scholar and my uncle an accomplished lawyer. They each wrote many books and articles, and both had gigantic libraries of unread books they would pick from when writing. I grew up with my grandfather at the kitchen table with a stack of books and his boxes of index cards, staring at us kids to please shut up. There is an undertone of nostalgia realizing that this is what I do too now, 30 years later, when both have sadly passed. Their libraries however remain, in the case of my grandfather, turned into a research library in Paris.
(edit: formatting, family anecdote) Also, it's just fun.
Tangentially related; I throw dust jackets away immediately. It's liberating.
That'd be a nifty background for your conference calls. Thank you.
So, I have a lot of books lying around that are partially read.
“What's the point of having a library full of books you've already read?”
― Ray Bradbury
Personally, I have a mixed physical-digital library. My physical library is packed with books that I think will stand the test of time (roughly speaking) and which I have truly long to read and re-read. I use the digital library for things that I think are more in the "this will pass" category (also roughly speaking, as I only own a digital copy of some real gems like Ousterhout's "philosophy of software" book).
Curious about the distribution others use here.