Why you should surround yourself with more books than you’ll ever have time to read

[Froide]

Jessica Stillman. (December 17, 2018). "Why you should surround yourself with more books than you’ll ever have time to read" FastCompany.

An overstuffed bookcase (or e-reader) says good things about your mind.

[HarryT]

This is not "News" . Moved to the "General Discussions" forum.

[fjtorres]

Ah, the old books as virtue-signalling decor theory.
Keeps these guys in business:

https://www.booksbythefoot.com

I know several avid readers who's book life cycle runs: buy, read, dispose. Most dispose of them by trading at twofer stores, one disposes by donating them to the library.

It takes all kinds.

Originally Posted by fjtorres

Ah, the old books as virtue-signalling decor theory.
Keeps these guys in business:

https://www.booksbythefoot.com

I was actually surprised the article deigned to include e-books. An impossibly large library of them has none of the visual cachet of a physical library, so doesn't generally get to be considered worthy of these "flaunt it" type pieces

[HarryT]

Personally speaking, there's nothing I'd like more than to have a large library at home. Unfortunately, physical space precludes it. The main reason for my starting to buy ebooks was that I'd reached the stage where almost every wall in my house had double-stacked bookshelves against it. Now, my physical library consists only of reference books (mainly Egyptology and the "Encyclopaedia Britannica") and those particularly nice hardbacks I can't bear to part with, such as my illustrated Tolkien books, and my 38-volume leather-bound "Complete Works of Dickens".

[issybird]

I wouldn't want to live in a bookless house and as Anthony Powell so memorably said, books do furnish a room. But as with so many things, less is more. Better curated collections in favorite categories than shelves stuffed with random paperbacks acquired from remainder tables. It can be hard to get over the compulsion to hang onto books as either something still to be read (even though the likelihood has dwindled to nil) or as tokens of achievement! But once you can no longer see the trees for the forest, there's little point. And that's aside from the issue of books as dustcatchers supreme.

I'm not nearly there yet, though.

[tubemonkey]

My book collection is entirely digital, with one exception. The only paper book in my house is a two volume coffee table-sized book by Gary Larson - The Complete Far Side.

Physical imitations, both of the space available to me and of my own motor skills mean that I strongly prefer e-books. That said books whose aesthetic appeal is strong enough stay, like the Discworld map collection and the beautiful bilingual tri-scriptal(my coinage) Dialogs of Pyaasa. Still on the look out for some drop-dead gorgeous Sadi too, if I can find them with caligraphic Persian Nastaliq on one side, English on the other.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by stuartjmz

Physical imitations, both of the space available to me and of my own motor skills mean that I strongly prefer e-books. That said books whose aesthetic appeal is strong enough stay, like the Discworld map collection and the beautiful bilingual tri-scriptal(my coinage) Dialogs of Pyaasa. Still on the look out for some drop-dead gorgeous Sadi too, if I can find them with caligraphic Persian Nastaliq on one side, English on the other.

I know exactly where you're coming from, Stuart. Several of my Egyptology reference books have large fold-out photographs of (for example) wall scenes in the tombs in the Valley of the Kings; one book has pictures that fold out to about 2mx1m in size. That just doesn't work with ebooks .

Originally Posted by HarryT

I know exactly where you're coming from, Stuart. Several of my Egyptology reference books have large fold-out photographs of (for example) wall scenes in the tombs in the Valley of the Kings; one book has pictures that fold out to about 2mx1m in size. That just doesn't work with ebooks .

I'm not so sure, there may be a certain aptness - zooming in on those images using a 6-inch e-ink screen would probably take about as long as did building the Sphinx.

[harriska2]

I'm almost done digitizing my library. Hate, hate, hate books. We had to move for 12 months and had to put everything into a 10x12 storage room. The books (curriculum) had to go to my mother's attic. Dragging that stuff around prompted me to buy a $3000 used scanner. Much better. Most of the curriculum now fits on an iPad.

[Deskisamess]

I need books around me, even though 98% of my reading is on digital books. Little by little we are thinning out our print books, but I can't imagine not having any. I think every room in our home, except the bathrooms, have at least a few books in them.

We have two family members who don't read. Their houses have zero books. I think it is why I feel unsettled in their homes.

[tomsem]

Originally Posted by HarryT

I know exactly where you're coming from, Stuart. Several of my Egyptology reference books have large fold-out photographs of (for example) wall scenes in the tombs in the Valley of the Kings; one book has pictures that fold out to about 2mx1m in size. That just doesn't work with ebooks .

Nonsense. Just put on your VR headset and launch the embedded X3D file.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by tomsem

Nonsense. Just put on your VR headset and launch the embedded X3D file.

How're other things in 2030? Anybody made it to Mars yet?

[rcentros]

Originally Posted by tubemonkey

My book collection is entirely digital, with one exception. The only paper book in my house is a two volume coffee table-sized book by Gary Larson - The Complete Far Side.

I've got the 4 volume Complete Calvin & Hobbes my daughter gave me last Christmas. I also still have a lot of hardback books in boxes out in the garage. I've been hauling them around for years and not reading them. Not all, but most of them aren't making the next move to Idaho in February.