from Hacker News

Art Garfunkel's Library

by archielc on 9/14/22, 9:10 AM with 140 comments

  • by supersrdjan on 9/16/22, 10:34 AM

    I used to keep a list like this (more modest though) but I stopped once I realized it's demeaning both to me and the books.

    The problem was that the list had no other purpose except as a kind of trophy case. I felt proud about my list, as if finishing a book is an achievement, as if reading is a sport, as if reading a lot makes you better than those who read less. I was disgusted by my own vanity, and moreover, considered it as proof that I haven't really improved my character from all that reading.

    Now I stopped maintaining a list and I stopped keeping a mental account of how many pages or books I read.

    The result is that, though I rarely finish any book I pick up, I probably spend more time in total reading, and I learn way more because I don't hesitate spending a lot of time appreciating or grappling with, say, a single paragraph of text.

    #itsnotarace

    (BTW I don't want to imply that this is true for everybody. And I mean if your list has notes that's totally different)

  • by peteforde on 9/16/22, 11:05 AM

    Audiobooks, borrowed for free from my library and listened to via the excellent Libby app, have been a life-line over the past four years.

    I went from 3-4 books a year to 3-4 books a week, sometimes more. I listen in the bathroom, while exercising, cooking, cleaning, cycling, gardening.

    My listening speed is typically 1.75x for dense prose and hard science, all the way up to 2.5x for fiction and biographies. The secret is to score a great pair of earbuds; I recommend Jabra Elite 75t. The further the sound is from your ear, the harder it is to parse speech at high speed.

    You don't start at 2.5x, obviously; start at 1.25x and increase every day or two until you start to zone out. You'll be pleasantly shocked at how quickly you'll ramp up. 1x sounds like the performer overdosed on benzos.

    In the past year, I've listened to everything Haruki Murakami has written, the entire Wheel of Time series (4.4M words vs 19D5H), and several hundred others.

    For free.

    And yes, I still read paper books, too. Sometimes.

  • by janvdberg on 9/16/22, 5:58 AM

    I love this! Everyone should keep a list like this (self-hosted). It also makes me a little bit sad, as there are SO MANY books and this shows that a lifetime of reading will only get you to maybe 2000 books.

    Choose wisely what you read.

  • by gnuj3 on 9/16/22, 6:12 AM

    I started keeping a text file with all things I read and another one for audiobooks. Since Obsidian came out I use it to edit my file and link books together.

    I use the following format:

    [[title]] by [[author]] (date finished)

    That way I generate a separate file for each book where I can keep notes and my rating. I also keep a separate file for each author so I can easily link all the books/short stories/essays etc by that author in one place. Obsidian is bloody awesome.

  • by olvy0 on 9/16/22, 10:22 AM

    Did he actually read War and Peace, The Great Gatsby, Catch 22, Candide, The Picture of Dorian Gray, a Malcolm X biography and two other books during the single month of Feb 1969?? I find that a tad hard to believe... But whatever. I'm a pretty fast reader myself, so I'll take that as a challenge / inspiration for myself :)

  • by 5mv2 on 9/16/22, 6:10 AM

    Interesting.

    Number of the 100 of his favorite books written before year X:

    1500 6

    1900 29

    1950 24

    1990 41

    2022 0

    → it's all pretty recent, which is surprising for a Taleb reader

    → but 0 was written in the last 30y!

    Also, 0 of the books he read in the last 30y made it to his 100 favorites list.

    When I did the same exercise, 50% of my favorite books were readings from early adulthood. It scared me: am I not learning anymore? I hope I'm not the only one.

  • by crb on 9/16/22, 6:41 AM

    In 2020, Garfunkel read a book called "Hello Darkness, My Old Friend". I looked it up. It's not about him.

  • by superb-owl on 9/16/22, 12:53 PM

    It's odd to see his transition from mysticism and philosophy in the 70s (Jung, Gurdjieff, Watts, Proust, Plato), to Republicanism today (Scarborough, O'Reilly, Rand). I don't want to generalize too much (he also read RBG's autobiography) but there's definitely a move towards politics.

  • by subpixel on 9/16/22, 11:34 AM

    I don’t care to find it but a journal entry from Art Garfunkel’s web site crossed my radar many years ago. I recall thinking “wow, this is some next-level narcissism here.”

    This list (and the royal we!) produce a similar reaction.

  • by Lio on 9/16/22, 11:09 AM

    How dark does that library look in the photo? You’d need (cough) bright eyes to read in there![1] :D

    On a less Dad joke line, a good number of those books are out of copyright. So it would be fun to link them to free versions if/when they become public domain.

    1. Sorry have a tendency to rabbit on occasionally…

  • by AlbertCory on 9/16/22, 5:34 AM

    There are about an equal number of "I read that" and "Did I read that? Or just part of it?"

    If you go into a used bookstore (remember those?) you find very few copies of Swann's Way but plenty of copies of the other books in In Search of Lost Time. Apparently it's common to read the first one and never go any further. I can't claim to have even done that.

  • by wyclif on 9/16/22, 5:48 AM

    Art Garfunkel encases his library shelves in plastic?

  • by itintheory on 9/16/22, 2:38 PM

    Someone should help this fellow set up an Amazon affiliate account and link those book titles.

  • by oh_my_goodness on 9/16/22, 6:13 AM

    He gets through Ulysses pretty good:

    "278. Jan 1984 James Joyce Ulysses * 1921 783 pp."

    "279. Jan 1984 Jim Harrison Farmer 1976 160 pp."

    "280. Jan 1984 Michel de Montaigne Travel Journal 1580-81 175 pp."

  • by jyriand on 9/16/22, 12:15 PM

    It's amazing how many times Chareles Darwin's book is mistitled: "The origin of species" The correct title is "On the origin of species".

  • by kwijibob on 9/16/22, 5:52 AM

    I have kept a book reading log on google sheets since 2007.

    Highly recommended.

  • by bjarneh on 9/16/22, 7:13 AM

    Top quality post! My list would be embarrassingly short..

  • by unethical_ban on 9/16/22, 5:17 AM

    This seems at first glance like a solid list. I never knew Garfunkel read this much.

  • by tirwander on 9/16/22, 2:08 PM

    I needed a warm fuzzy feeling this morning. This is great. Thanks :)

  • by hybby on 9/16/22, 6:11 PM

    Remarkable that a new book hasn't entered his "favourites" (top 100) in 22 years. And that his favourite books are ones he read longest ago - the favourites ranking tracks with date read fairly consistently!

  • by panosfilianos on 9/16/22, 9:50 AM

    Are there any other lists like this, that you know about?

  • by fortran77 on 9/16/22, 12:26 PM

    I'm glad he's keeping busy!

  • by moomin on 9/16/22, 11:58 AM

    “The Fountainhead” is starred.

  • by cleandreams on 9/16/22, 5:51 AM

    Admirable.

  • by belter on 9/16/22, 10:02 AM

    With all due respect to Art Garfunkel, whose work I greatly admire...I would suggest to tone it down a little bit :-) and maybe change the text on the page 1968 to 1978 from "We are pleased to present a listing of every book Art has read since 1968." to maybe "We are pleased to present a listing of every book Art bought, opened once, perused, read a few pages and some he read since 1968..." :-))

    From 1968 to the end of 1978 you have approximately 3650 days...And since the page has the somewhat unusual take of also prominently listing the number of pages of each book...I was able to gather the total number of pages amounts to 43,612 pages. 12 pages per day for 10 years? Uhmmm...