Too many books!

[ljwrites]

An antilibrary is a powerful reminder of your limitations — the vast quantity of things you don’t know, half-know, or will one day realize you’re wrong about. By living with that reminder daily you can nudge yourself toward the kind of intellectual humility that improves decision-making and drives learning.

Why you should surround yourself with more books than you'll ever have time to read is a reassuring read, but nobody tell my husband. It's been a contention between us for years that he has far too many books (and so do I tbh), and I don't want to validate him.

Comments

[lb_lee]

No way! Because then you have to pack and CARRY all those heavy-ass suckers when you move!

I totally keep some reference books I don't read cover to cover. But I try not to have too many, because I always, ALWAYS remember the weight.

Plus, I want other people to enjoy those books! I can't imagine anything sadder than hanging onto a book for a million years, only to never ever actually USE it. It's like those comics or toy collectors who buy a million things but never actually play with them or read them.

--Rogan

[ljwrites]

Seeing it as future luggage is an excellent deterrent to the "Ooh, shiny!" factor, yes. I think the original article comes from a place of a lot of privilege, since it's most geared to homeowners with a lot of space. I also think it's an excessively individual-centric view that doesn't take into account, like, actual libraries which are invaluable community resources.

Owning e-books seems to be a great middle ground, though with proprietary platforms there's the scary possibility of your books simply being taken off your device without your consent--sometimes without even a refund, evidently. I prefer my own DRM-free copy wherever possible.

Edit: Also I cringed at the reference to Brain Pickings, which I always find pretentious in the extreme. I could make a Mad Lib of its format, which always goes like "[Book/letter] by [author] is a [superlative adverb] [positive adjective of 3+ syllables, more as needed] [noun with positive associations] full of [positive characteristic 1], [positive characteristic 2], and [positive characteristic 3]."

[lb_lee]

Public libraries are godly and I am so glad they exist.

I admit, I don't buy ebooks that have DRM. I mean, jeez, what if I end up reading that ebook with my 2005 laptop because I'm out in the sticks? They don't seriously expect me to ONLY read an ebook with my desktop in my workstation, do they? But that's the only computer I have that can access the internet. (I mean I guess my phone can, but why would I read an ebook on my phone only? That's awful.)

Is that what Brain Pickings is? I'd never heard of them. But I admit a knee-jerk distrust of anyone who claims doing any random thing proves you're more enlightened. Some people surely have a million books as exercises in intellectual humility. Others own a million books because they plan to sell them off as collectible commodities, and others own a million books because they are hoarders.

--Rogan

[ljwrites]

DRM is basically the devil that's based on the idea that consumers should not be given ownership and control over content they paid for with their own money and should be on perpetual rental instead.

Brain Pickings is like the online version of Reader's Digest that gives bite-sized summaries of content, and much like RD in its heyday it tends to be lightweight, feel-good pseudointellectual fluff. (And I say this as someone who read RD avidly when younger.)