4 ms·

In some places it may cost more to shelve and house the books than to buy them. (Unless you're happy storing most of your books in boxes.) Probably not if you'

by gjm11 10y ago

In some places it may cost more to shelve and house the books than to buy them. (Unless you're happy storing most of your books in boxes.) Probably not if you're in Eastern Europe, but if you're somewhere like San Francisco or London then the cost of the extra space taken up by having a lot of books may well be more than the cost of the books themselves. (I live a little way outside Cambridge, in England. I reckon the price of an extra reasonably-sized room is maybe £60k, and if that room is dedicated entirely to books it can take maybe 4000 or so. So I'm paying about £15/book for housing. If I were in Cambridge itself the figure might be 2x that or more; in London, substantially more again; in New York, even more.)

paganel 10y ago
I think having books in your house is totally worth the price, even in the cases you mention, especially if you have kids. IMHO having your kids being surrounded by books since an early age it's one of the best ways to convince them that reading and wanting to learn about new stuff is good. I personally put that above them attending a good school, and I've read about lots of parents on HN choosing to purchase more expensive houses only because they were closer to good schools.
- gjm11 10y ago
  For the avoidance of doubt, I agree, and the reason I did that calculation in the first place is that such a lot of the wall-space in my house is occupied by books. (But there are no rooms completely given over to books; instead the fiction is in the main bedroom, the academic-y books in the study, the humour in the guest bedroom, etc.) Our daughter reads a whole lot, but as well as growing up surrounded by books she has very bookish genes, and bookish friends, and a library two doors down the road, and so forth, so it's hard to disentangle the causes.
- ashark 10y ago
  > I personally put that above them attending a good school, and I've read about lots of parents on HN choosing to purchase more expensive houses only because they were closer to good schools. Peer. Group. See the thread the other day about rich kids vs. poor kids prepping for the SAT. Their peers set their norms, which determines what they'll actually do (you can tell them to do otherwise all day long—it'll barely matter). For all the talk about funding and such, the people in and related to a school—students, parents, teachers, roughly in order of importance—account for about 90% of what distinguishes a "good" school from a "bad" one. Norms set by parents at a young age (you can try to break out of your normal behavior for your class/SES to adjust your kids' experience "up", but it'll be damn difficult) and peers throughout school are THE most important factor for later outcomes. You can buy (improved probability of better) peers with money—spent on either housing or the right private school, or, failing that, carefully chosen extracurriculars and summer programs. It's kind of worse than if the problems with schools were just funding-related, actually, but that's how it is. Agreed about the books being important, though. I was just starting a to-ebooks transition intended to replace at least 2-3 hundred of my books, then we started having kids, and I thought about what it would have been like to grow up with such a huge selection of excellent books right there in my house. Trend halted and reversed immediately, haha.
- lukas099 10y ago
  Assuming your city has a public library, and you check out only 10 books a month, your child will be exposed to many more books growing up than if you buy books (as buying you are limited by space and money). Of course, one can check out way more than 10 books per month if they are really a bookworm.

by gjm11 10y ago

paganel 10y ago

I think having books in your house is totally worth the price, even in the cases you mention, especially if you have kids. IMHO having your kids being surrounded by books since an early age it's one of the best ways to convince them that reading and wanting to learn about new stuff is good. I personally put that above them attending a good school, and I've read about lots of parents on HN choosing to purchase more expensive houses only because they were closer to good schools.

gjm11 10y ago
For the avoidance of doubt, I agree, and the reason I did that calculation in the first place is that such a lot of the wall-space in my house is occupied by books. (But there are no rooms completely given over to books; instead the fiction is in the main bedroom, the academic-y books in the study, the humour in the guest bedroom, etc.) Our daughter reads a whole lot, but as well as growing up surrounded by books she has very bookish genes, and bookish friends, and a library two doors down the road, and so forth, so it's hard to disentangle the causes.
ashark 10y ago
> I personally put that above them attending a good school, and I've read about lots of parents on HN choosing to purchase more expensive houses only because they were closer to good schools. Peer. Group. See the thread the other day about rich kids vs. poor kids prepping for the SAT. Their peers set their norms, which determines what they'll actually do (you can tell them to do otherwise all day long—it'll barely matter). For all the talk about funding and such, the people in and related to a school—students, parents, teachers, roughly in order of importance—account for about 90% of what distinguishes a "good" school from a "bad" one. Norms set by parents at a young age (you can try to break out of your normal behavior for your class/SES to adjust your kids' experience "up", but it'll be damn difficult) and peers throughout school are THE most important factor for later outcomes. You can buy (improved probability of better) peers with money—spent on either housing or the right private school, or, failing that, carefully chosen extracurriculars and summer programs. It's kind of worse than if the problems with schools were just funding-related, actually, but that's how it is. Agreed about the books being important, though. I was just starting a to-ebooks transition intended to replace at least 2-3 hundred of my books, then we started having kids, and I thought about what it would have been like to grow up with such a huge selection of excellent books right there in my house. Trend halted and reversed immediately, haha.
lukas099 10y ago
Assuming your city has a public library, and you check out only 10 books a month, your child will be exposed to many more books growing up than if you buy books (as buying you are limited by space and money). Of course, one can check out way more than 10 books per month if they are really a bookworm.