Quote:
Originally Posted by issybird
I think the reality is that nearly all of those books accumulated by parents in their lifetimes end up in the dumpster at death, and those are the few that survived moves and general pruning over time. In short, this is a sentimental take on physical books that doesn't reflect the reality. Books are heavy, bulky and deteriorate and as anyone's who's tried knows, no place wants them when you want to get rid of them. And seriously, what percentage of anyone's library consists of absolute gems compared to the dross of everyday reading?
It's like baseball cards; they're only valuable because Mom threw most of them out when the kid went off to college.
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That was not true in our case. My parents weren't readers, but they accumulated a modest paper book library, all of which I devoured as a child, teenager and young adult, many of the books I read more than once. I still have most of those books and they're precious to me, I won't get rid of them. But yeah, no one will want my digital library. I'm basically the only reader in the family (my maternal grandmother was one too, but she's long dead).