4 ms·

I don't understand why people fetishize book collections so much. Or rather, I do understand but don't care for it. If you had a massive DVD collection (back

I don't understand why people fetishize book collections so much. Or rather, I do understand but don't care for it. If you had a massive DVD collection (back in the day) you'd get "Are you really going to rewatch those??" If you have a guitar collection it's "Do you really play them all??" But a book collection is always taken as an unquestioned badge of your smarts or your refined culture. Never mind how many books were actually read, and never mind if you only retain a couple of pages worth of content from each of them. It's a bizarre mental hoarding, the need to forever externalize something you were supposed to internalize instead.

noelwelsh 3y ago
I'm not one for collecting stuff for the sake of collecting stuff, but I do have a fair number of books. Some of them are for reference, and a lot of them hang around because it's easier to put the book on a shelf once it's read than take them down to the second-hand store. You analogy isn't the best, because one guitar is a reasonable substitute for another guitar, whereas a Mr Men book doesn't substitute for, say, "Modern Compiler Implementation in ML".
mejutoco 3y ago
Books are fantastic. I definitely would judge a person that has books for display only. It is easy to tell too. Books are not only novels and the best sellers you find at airports. You can check a fact or a chapter of a textbook to learn or refresh some math problem. You can revisit your own notes on a margin of a novel. You can lend them. Books promote curiosity. While they can be superficial I think dismissing them like that is just anti-intellectual. Other posts in this thread say you can find the books online. As an example, I challenge anyone to find the Princeton Companion to Mathematics, a beautiful book, online. Not all content is always online, as some people think. We need books. Additionally, physical books are more difficult to destroy than digital books, can be smuggled and resold, and do not have changing conditions or price of access. They also do not care what is the prevalent opinion of something they contain. Just a block of wood waiting for us to read it. Now I feel like ordering more books today. Edit: added the additionally part and grammar.
- challeng3 3y ago
  The Princeton Companion to Mathematics: https://library.lol/main/EFA51226D14D0A95FB6F2BD8669499C5 https://library.lol/main/EFA51226D14D0A95FB6F2BD8669499C5 Took a few seconds to find, got any more challenges?
  - mejutoco 3y ago
    Upvoted. I am quite positively surprised. While not all books might be online, less of them are missing than I thought.
    - challeng3 3y ago
      Libgen is a treasure trove, it's given me access to so many books that I couldn't have even bought (out of print). Check out annas-archive.org for a comprehensive book search engine :)

noelwelsh 3y ago

I'm not one for collecting stuff for the sake of collecting stuff, but I do have a fair number of books. Some of them are for reference, and a lot of them hang around because it's easier to put the book on a shelf once it's read than take them down to the second-hand store. You analogy isn't the best, because one guitar is a reasonable substitute for another guitar, whereas a Mr Men book doesn't substitute for, say, "Modern Compiler Implementation in ML".

mejutoco 3y ago

Books are fantastic. I definitely would judge a person that has books for display only. It is easy to tell too. Books are not only novels and the best sellers you find at airports. You can check a fact or a chapter of a textbook to learn or refresh some math problem. You can revisit your own notes on a margin of a novel. You can lend them. Books promote curiosity. While they can be superficial I think dismissing them like that is just anti-intellectual. Other posts in this thread say you can find the books online. As an example, I challenge anyone to find the Princeton Companion to Mathematics, a beautiful book, online. Not all content is always online, as some people think. We need books. Additionally, physical books are more difficult to destroy than digital books, can be smuggled and resold, and do not have changing conditions or price of access. They also do not care what is the prevalent opinion of something they contain. Just a block of wood waiting for us to read it. Now I feel like ordering more books today. Edit: added the additionally part and grammar.

challeng3 3y ago
The Princeton Companion to Mathematics: https://library.lol/main/EFA51226D14D0A95FB6F2BD8669499C5 https://library.lol/main/EFA51226D14D0A95FB6F2BD8669499C5 Took a few seconds to find, got any more challenges?
- mejutoco 3y ago
  Upvoted. I am quite positively surprised. While not all books might be online, less of them are missing than I thought.
  - challeng3 3y ago
    Libgen is a treasure trove, it's given me access to so many books that I couldn't have even bought (out of print). Check out annas-archive.org for a comprehensive book search engine :)