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In my apartment we have ~2,500 books (so says LibraryThing). They take a wall 4m long of floor-to-ceiling bookshelves in the living room, another 2 bookcases (d
by buro9 4y ago
In my apartment we have ~2,500 books (so says LibraryThing). They take a wall 4m long of floor-to-ceiling bookshelves in the living room, another 2 bookcases (double-width Billy), and another wall in the office (2m floor-to-ceiling). They also overflow to an office at the University and various stacks around the apartment.
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/ 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.
- noduerme 4y agoOne of the great things I've come to appreciate about books in the age of digital media is that their physicality gives them a permanence. It's not just the pleasure of reading something on paper... it's that the ideas or stories committed to books are of a naturally higher quality (argue or not) because the writers knew they would be permanent; because six months had passed, and endless edits and revisions; because the authors are dead or hiding. 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.
- ekianjo 4y ago> that their physicality gives them a permanence. 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.
- noduerme 4y agoTrue too. I have probably 20 books queued on my e-reader but I still would rather grab books off the shelf at the end of the night ...and then find myself back in them for days
- april_22 4y agoAnd this seems true for many people. No one I know has sticked with their e-reader and Google searches for 'Kindle' have also only been decreasing the past years. https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&q=kindle https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&q=kindle
- throw1234651234 4y agoIn the basement, I have a two bookshelfs of books that "I will never read or re-read". And that's the ones I didn't have the heart to throw away. These are both fiction and non-fiction. It was a sad day when I realized that most books are trash written for money just like your aforementioned TV series.
- slothtrop 4y agoMostly agree, but I find as time goes on there's an increasingly larger percentage of prospective books to read that I'm blase about, not unlike TV and film. I now abort after a few chapters if it does nothing for me. I've done this for authors I know and like. More likely for me to finish non-fiction over fiction. The only books I've wanted to read twice over so far are from Dostoevsky and Pynchon.
- colechristensen 4y agoBut are there any of those you’d want to suggest somebody else read?
- slothtrop 4y agoNot understanding the question
- colechristensen 4y agoI mean the books in the basement, are they books you would suggest to someone to read, give to a partner, child, or friend? This is one of the values I have in a library of books many of which myself I'll likely never read again. Giving the right one to the right person.
- slothtrop 4y agoI'd probably suggest any book I like in which case I wouldn't be as eager to get rid of it. I think you might have me mixed up with another user because I don't have a large library and didn't suggest I did.
- colechristensen 4y agoHm, yup. Looks like I hit reply on the wrong comment.
- Brian_K_White 4y agoA disordered bookshelf is priceless for discovery and unplannable connections. 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.
- LeafItAlone 4y agoWhat’s your plan for all of the books? 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.
- buro9 4y agoWe have no plan for them... we read them, we put them on the shelf, we may reread them or loan them out but otherwise they live on the shelf. We do protect them from sun and moisture, but that's easy enough in the UK. 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.
- apadmanabhan 4y agoPerhaps donate them to the local university or a library? A friend of mine who retired recently is doing just that with his huge stack of books (granted he has a lot of technical books and textbooks). Just out of curiosity, what will the Crown do with such inheritances? Do they distribute it amongst their network or something?
- EricE 4y agoSeems like a potential lost opportunity - if you really do have that many rare/obscure books there should be some organization that might want to at least have a first crack at them. I'm in a similar position - time to do some research to see if there is someplace after I'm gone that might be interested in at least right of first refusal and a directive in my trust.
- peoplefromibiza 4y ago> In my apartment we have ~2,500 books 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.
- rawbert 4y agoYes, moving was the reason I started a way more minimalistic lifestyle. I got rid of all the books, video games, action figures and all that other stuff I used to collect. Today it's like an addiction, owning less makes me so much happier and I cant even explain why. No 20 pairs of fancy shoes, no outfit for every occasion, no latest technical device for fun - just less stress.