Sounds like fun with a lot of bookshelves. I have a crazy long "to read" note file. It's not possible that I'm going to ever read all that. And that file grows

Sounds like fun with a lot of bookshelves. I have a crazy long "to read" note file. It's not possible that I'm going to ever read all that. And that file grows of course. So that a better procedure is for me to poke around the list when I have incoming time availability and get one or two that interest me NOW. After that, public and university libraries around me are very good - instead of a pre-filled bookshelf. For reference books, I have started keeping around textbooks. When I want a discussion of X, between the web and the textbooks, it usually works out. (And my public libraries mostly don't stock textbooks - never understood that - so I keep some paper there.)