
Bought and Unread Books - lolindrath
http://lolindrath.com/2014/01/06/bought-and-unread-books/
======
brudgers
_" Many years ago," Gaspar said, taking out a copy of Moravia's The
Adolescents and thumbing it as he spoke, "I had a library of books, oh,
thousands of books -- never could bear to toss one out, not even the bad ones
-- and when folks would come to the house to visit they'd look around at all
the nooks and crannies stuffed with books; and if they were the sort of folks
who don't snuggle with books, they'd always ask the same dumb question." He
waited a moment for a response and when none was forthcoming (the sound of
china cups on sink tile), he said, "Guess what the question was."_

 _From the kitchen, without much interest: "No idea."_

 _" They'd always ask it with the kind of voice people use in the presence of
large sculptures in museums. They'd ask me, 'Have you read all these books?'"
He waited again, but Billy Kinetta was not playing the game. "Well, young
fella, after a while the same dumb question gets asked a million times, you
get sorta snappish about it. And it came to annoy me more than a little bit.
Till I finally figured out the right answer._

 _" And you know what that answer was? Go ahead, take a guess." Billy appeared
in the kitchenette doorway._

 _" I suppose you told them you'd read a lot of them but not all of them."_

 _Gaspar waved the guess away with a flapping hand. "Now what good would that
have done? They wouldn't know they'd asked a dumb question, but I didn't want
to insult them, either. So when they'd ask if I'd read all those books, I'd
say, 'Hell, no. Who wants a library full of books you've already read?'"_

[http://harlanellison.com/iwrite/paladin.htm](http://harlanellison.com/iwrite/paladin.htm)

~~~
salvadors
See also Umberto Eco's Anti-Library, c/o Taleb:

“The writer Umberto Eco belongs to that small class of scholars who are
encyclopedic, insightful, and non dull. He is the owner of a large personal
library (containing thirty thousand books), and separates visitors into two
categories: those who react with 'Wow! Signore professore dottore Eco, what a
library you have! How many of these books have you read?' and the others - a
very small minority - who get the point that a private library is not an ego-
boosting appendage but a research tool. Read books are far less valuable than
unread ones. The library should contain as much of what you do not know as
your financial means, mortgage rates, and the currently tight read-estate
market allows you to put there. You will accumulate more knowledge and more
books as you grow older, and the growing number of unread books on the shelves
will look at you menacingly. Indeed, the more you know, the larger the rows of
unread books. Let us call this collection of unread books an antilibrary.”

------
sirgawain33
I upped my amount of reading taking the opposite approach to the author:
buying more books that I don't read.

The mechanics work something like this:

\- its easier to read a book you're motivated to read

\- you're not sure what you will be motivated to read until after you've
finished your current book(s)

\- so, buy books you might be interested in advance, they'll be there and
ready when the motivation hits

I buy books in theme areas: pragmatism, biographies of creative people,
mythology, etc. That makes a smooth transition from one book to the next easy.
You tend to read your current book with an eye to what's coming up on your
shelf this way.

Also consider that you don't always want to read dense books. So having more
books on hand helps you regain motivation in the down times by having easier
stuff on hand. Jonathan franzen had a really nice essay on this about how pulp
mystery novels kept him sane.

It helps that I have a used bookstore nearby where I can buy books for a
dollar or so. But, anyway, there's so much cheap stuff on amazon that anyone
can apply this approach without breaking the bank.

Hope this helps other folks read more. Reading has helped my coding and
business more than any other habit.

~~~
rdc12
Can you give some examples by what you mean by pragmatism as a theme please

~~~
sirgawain33
Anything by William James. A Rorty and Dewey book are on my shelf. A few
authors mentioned by James that I liked: JS Mill, is one. Interestingly, Jack
London treats themes in pragmatism (in the Sea Wolf, for example)

------
WalterBright
I have maybe 5 to 6 thousand books. Of course it's quite impossible to read
them all. But it's fun sometimes to just poke through them, and there's never
a shortage of "what do I take on the next airplane ride".

I have maybe half of them scanned in. It's marvelous that I can carry this
library with me on a trip, as it's about 75G.

~~~
prawn
Can you explain your scanning process? Are book scanners affordable?

~~~
WalterBright
I use a fujitsu fi-5120c hopper fed scanner. It's a destructive scanner, i.e.
you have to slice the spine off. 400 dpi gives a satisfying result.

~~~
prawn
Thanks!

(About $1,200 for anyone else curious.)

~~~
WalterBright
There are many hopper-fed scanners on Amazon, from about $700 up.

------
edanm
I used to have a stack of unread books. I still do, but now everything is on
the Kindle.

In fact, the Kindle has the best solution for this ever - every time I come
across a book I want to read, I simply go to Amazon and click "Send Sample to
Kindle". Then, I have a sample of the book on my Kindle.

Whenever I decide I need to read a new book, I open the Kindle and choose from
the hundreds of samples that are there. If I like it, I also buy it.

This way, I don't have to pay so much money on books that I'll never read, but
I still have them available for whenever I do get need to read a new book.
Best of both worlds.

~~~
matznerd
Kindle is good but I prefer a solution I've been working on for a while. I use
an app called QuickReader (speed reading app) to read all books my books at
about 500 words per minute. The app takes ePub format. You can very easily
send it to the app with Calibre (and also convert PDF to ePub).

I had the book Future Perfect in hardcover sitting on my shelf for 3 months. I
loaded it in QR and because the app tells you how long it will take at your
WPM pace to finish that chapter and the book, I know I will finish this
chapter in 6:53 and the book in 1:50:49. It makes books much less intimidating
and I usually do 15-30 minute sessions. You don't get bored or distracted
because the words are being pushed in front of you. It's amazing. I've never
read more books in a shorter time with this system.

I think I will write a full post on my system. Also protip: Get the audio if
available and listen to that when you can't read.

------
prawn
I don't buy as many books as I am gifted books. My in-progress pile is
daunting and the count of unread books in the house dwarfs that.

Sadly, I don't think I've completed a book this year, only started more. When
do people find the time? I drive, so the daily commute is out unless I turn to
audiobooks. I have a young child, so the mornings and any time before 7pm are
gone. Cooking and cleaning chew up a bit more time in the evening and I'm
increasingly keen to get to sleep earlier than past years because the cat will
wake me at 4-5am and then my son from about 6am. Not to mention social
engagements and then weekends given to gardening, fixes around the house, etc.
I don't really watch much TV, so there's little time to regain there.

I am interested in all the books in-progress and don't want to abandon any, so
Fogus' tips don't help. I know someone who gets through audiobooks faster by
playing at 1.5 speed, so maybe that would help...

Reading of people who get through a book every day or even a book a week
absolutely amazes me.

~~~
kabouseng
I am in much the same predicament as you. The only time I get to read my books
is during holidays, and as such much of my holidays turns into reading
holidays (even when not at home). Though with kids even that can get
difficult.

------
dmunoz
Ah, yes... my pile of bought and unread books. Still much less scary than my
reading list, which threatens to collapse into a black hole if I continue
adding to it.

That being said, and more related to the source post, it looks doable. SICP
really isn't all that scary. I finally read it last year, and both enjoyed it
massively and got through it relatively quickly. Expecting yourself to do
_all_ of the exercises would change this perspective, of course. Then it would
be fairly scary, I guess.

I got a chuckle seeing volumes from The Art of Computer Programming in a pile
before I realized they were in his pile to "skim through so I know what is in
them so I can use them more effectively." Reading through those in detail in a
year would be surprising, not to mention the other books in the post.

Good luck! Hope I see your follow up post at years end with how many you
actually read. Let me add a vote for "Ruby Under a Microscope," I read it
shortly after it came out and enjoyed it very much.

------
benatkin
I try to do the opposite. I ignore the books I have when selecting the next
book to read, and try to determine what's most important. Then, if I already
have it, I'll read it, and if not, I'll get it.

It takes a relatively long time to read a book, so it's worth it to me to get
the one I want to read most, and pay for it if I have to.

~~~
alok-g
Totally. The cost of the book is often so much less than the cost of the time
spent reading it (am assuming a developed country's perspective here). So one
should optimize for the time rather than the cost of ownership of the book.

I have a huge library of books (and I have read many of them), and still find
pressing topics I need to know which are not covered by any of the books I
have (and neither seemingly by the Internet at least till I discover some
relevant keywords).

An additional thing is that I have read through the introductions of a lot
more books, and that by itself gives a first understanding of the subject.

~~~
lesterbuck
There is the old quote about

"We can buy books but we can't buy the time to read them."

------
kamaal
I'm not sure why you should buy so many books, given that you know you are not
finishing them. I can understand novels, and story books and stuff like that.
But its not wise to buy technical books when things change so rapidly in our
area of work.

I currently have to two books to finish. One is Ulysses. Reading that book is
really more like a project. Tried chewing through the first chapter,
everything went over my head. Its nearly unreadable. I guess I need a guide
book along with it.

~~~
dkuntz2
I disagree on your technical books point. Things may change, but most of the
technical books I buy (I can't really speak for anyone else), and those in the
post, are, for the most part, going to be relevant for years to come. Most of
the books are fairly old, and based on the titles they're generic knowledge,
even if they implement something using a specific language that may die, the
ideas and concepts they contain are still usable.

Even the "Work Shelf", which contains the most specific books, probably won't
go out of date.

------
busterarm
My pile of unread books is kinda terrifying.

On the upside, I do manage to get through all of the books related to my
field, so the stack mostly contains the remaining works of Kierkegaard that
I've missed, the complete works of William Blake, Russian literature
(translated), mathematics texts, and small stack of untranslated Japanese
novels.

Some of this I'm saving for my "cargo freighter around the world" trip.

~~~
dded
> Some of this I'm saving for my "cargo freighter around the world" trip.

Do they still have tramp steamers?

~~~
busterarm
Not that I've seen anyone offering service on.

------
deevus
I have Programming Pearls and it's one of the books that made me realise I
know nothing.

I pick it up every now and then to see if I can get further than before.

~~~
dded
It's a great book to pick up "every now and then". Most of the chapters can be
read as independent essays, and even the ones that continue ideas from before
stand on their own pretty well. It's also a good book to bring along on a
flight.

------
adrianhoward
I used to have a to-read pile.

Then I had a to-read shelf.

and then... and then...

Ended up with about two and a half 6 foot bookshelves full of stuff I hadn't
read. Which is currently sitting in storage.

For the last few years I've had the rule that I don't buy a book until the
point that I'm going to start reading it. Which the world of digital books has
obviously made a lot easier.

Made my life simpler - I'd recommend it ;-)

------
OneOneOneOne
Very nice set of technical books. I own at least 60% (some are about 20 years
old).

My 2014 goal is 10K pages read not including technical or maths. This year I
will keep accurate records and keep a burn down chart to make sure I reach my
goal. Last year I had quickly fallen behind and keep poor records (a read
stack pushed around by a young child.)

------
dded
> If I don’t find Black Swan interesting I should probably just donate it
> instead of suffering through it, for example.

I'm not only willing, I'm eager to give up on a book I don't either enjoy or
find interesting. But I know a surprising number of people who force
themselves to finish any book that they start.

~~~
semerda
Skipping few pages always helps. Sometimes some concepts are hard to chew
through. Black Swan in my opinion is a great book!

~~~
dded
I didn't say that I stop if I find a book difficult. I stop if I decide that I
don't like the book. But you're right, some times skipping some pages can get
you going again with a dry spot in a novel.

(And I wasn't commenting on Black Swan, just on the concept of not finishing a
book. I'm unfamiliar with Black Swan.)

------
bradleydwyer
The size of my unread book pile is only dwarfed by the recognition of the
missed opportunity for knowledge.

I won't call it a resolution, but I will read through as many as I can this
year (there are a _lot_ )

------
gopi
At present i have almost 25 books in my kindle collection called 'To Read".
Impulse Book buying is so easy with Kindle i buy every time some book is
mentioned in a blog post or an article.

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ycmike
If I were to sit down and listen to all the books I have not yet listened to
on Audible 8 hours a day it would almost be Valentine's day. I hear you.

------
motxilo
The good news is that SICP is an illuminating experience, the bad news are it
took me 1 year to go through it, doing all the exercises along the way.

~~~
watersb
If you just 'read' SICP, you are wasting your time. You read it in the best
possible way.

------
auggierose
Putting math and perl into the same category is an interesting choice...

~~~
eru
Must be the funny symbols.

