from Hacker News

The value of owning more books than you can read

by jedwhite on 8/3/22, 1:17 AM with 2 comments

• by ggm on 8/3/22, 1:27 AM

  Taleb is being provocative in his choice of words. At nothing like 30,000 books now (although in my childhood, I probably did live in a house of 15,000+) The richess of choice is daunting, (well known paralysis when faced with too many choices) but that said, also amazingly inviting.

  Finish a book of romance set in middle ages times? You've got a book of real history to hand. Find it strikes a chord about Byzantium? You have two. Drill down into military history? Another 4. Decide to swap and read Tintin? Sure: which language..

  I do not expect to read all my remaining books before I die. I don't consider this hoarding because the books will go somewhere else, to somebody else, and the potential to be read is latent all the time. I'm looking at a shelf behind my monitors with about 40 books on it and I think I've read 4/5 of that shelf, some many times. Maybe by now I've pruned back to more read than not, but that childhood home, less than half I suspect. Far less even.

• by emrah on 8/3/22, 8:08 AM

  Not every book is worth reading, nor is every book filled with brand new ideas. Most books center around a single idea with the meat of the text trying to convince the reader that the idea is correct.

  I wish every book listed just the ideas so I could decide if it's worth my time to read it or not.

  That's why I appreciate people like Sivers who take notes and share them publicly. I also appreciate books with less clever chapter titles so I can more easily figure out the ideas without reading cover to cover.