
Rands: The Book Stalker - naish
http://www.randsinrepose.com/archives/2009/08/08/the_book_stalker.html
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andreyf
I don't get it. Buying digital and real books is not exclusive. Personally, I
like explicitly deciding which books deserve the honor of "gathers dust and
taking up space" status. Just as I keep printed-out copies of interesting
online essays or blog posts in a bunch of binders, I keep tangible copies of
interesting books around as well.

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pj
I'd like to zoom in on that bookshelf. I wonder what books are on it. All I
can make out easily is Watchmen.

With examination I see "Infected," left self third from the top. I notice IT
and The Stand on the left shelf second from the bottom. Must be the Stephen
King shelf. Lots of sci-fi on the shelf above that. Textbooks in the shelf on
the right...

<http://www.randsinrepose.com/assets/randsshelf.jpg>

Do you recognize any other books?

~~~
GHFigs
Top right shelf contains "Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell" (in black) and the
Harry Potter series. Below that "The Rise of The Creative Class" (green).
Middle left contains "America (The Book)" (red).

Fun exercise.

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blasdel
Growing up, my parents' apartment (which contained their startup's office) had
about 300 feet of shelves, all completely full. On top of that my dad had
about 2000 vintage trade paperback scifi novels in grapefruit juice boxes, and
at any one time there were ~3000 computer magazines in banker's boxes. Every
few years we would fill the building's dumpster with magazines, but the piles
would grow again. It's much harder psychologically to get rid of books.

Books are a burden.

When I was in college I would go through periods of using the regional
interlibrary loan to its limits -- having 30+ books at a time, going through
10 a week.

Now that I've graduated, I read almost solely from the screen. I already spend
almost all my time reading, and there's a massive surplus of material. Why
would I want to spend my time and anxiety on acquiring physical books, _and
paying for the privilege_ , when I already have too much to read?

~~~
billswift
Of course they are a burden; things are only burdensome to the extent that
they are valued. If they were worthless, who'd care. Besides, if nothing else,
you can always donate them to a library; I've ended up doing that with boxes
of the books that were less valuable to me every time I have moved.

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jrockway
I think people like books because bookshelves hold them so well. They are
decorative. You need something on your wall, but posters are for college kids,
so why not some books?

I have a shelfful of books. I maybe read one of them every few months or so.
But mostly, it is a list of books that I've read that takes up a significant
part of my flat. They take up valuable space and collect dust, and are a pain
to move, all so I can flip through a book instead of do a Google search. Not
very convenient. You could go so far as to say, "pointless".

e-books are much better -- when you are done reading them, they become a line
on a display that you don't have to dust, find storage for, or pack when you
move. And of course, just like real books, you can refer to them years after
you've read them. (I guess you can't loan them to people, but for $5, who
cares?)

And oh yeah, trees. When you buy a book, you kill them.

~~~
Raphael
With an internet connection, you can loan books to everyone at once!

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wallflower
I can see the perspective that physical books as an inefficient alternative to
digital books, and I grew up with books and books will always be a part of my
life.

I believe books can be totems of our life and interests. Even if they don't
get read and/or don't reflect your current life, books on a shelf are still
telling a story _about_ _you_ in a way that DVDs you own can't. I feel that a
single book by itself that someone owns is not particularly interesting but
the larger hodge podge or holistic collection of books that it belongs to is
_interesting_. For example, my friend Simon and his wife have a collection of
travel books in a high-traffic/prominent location (right next to the garage
access/front door) (to places they've been and hope to go) - and I feel this
is interesting because they have two very young kids and are in no position to
travel off.. But perhaps a daily reminder..

Books can be good conversation starters/icebreakers. Seriously, if you want to
meet someone with a certain type of interest, try starting conversations with
people who are hanging out in that area of the bookstore. You can start to
learn more about a person from the books they have on their bookshelf. If they
have any biographies, I usually ask why they are interested in that person.
Sometimes you can even infer what they are hiding from the books they show.

Before a party in my apartment, I deliberately randomized the books that were
all neatly categorized and alpha by author (like in a bookstore! I own one of
those UPC barcode scanners too) to make it appear that I wasn't that OCD. I
don't think anyone noticed.

I believe physical books are more valuable than digital ones because they are
a concrete representation of someone's passion and their investment of time in
it. The sentimentality of books as being part of someone's life work is more
noticeable if it is decades old and sizable (page-wise) - makes you wonder -
who wrote this/why did they write it/who were they.

~~~
bkudria
Um, reorganizing your shelf for a party? Hiding your OCD is OCD too :)

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shaunxcode
my bookshelf contains tons of books, hardcore zines and vinyl - I wouldn't
have it any other way. The chance of me finishing reading a pdf/ebook of the
smalltalk 80 manual from front to back including the appendix is slim to none
- however order it for 3 bucks off ebay and keep it around and with in a month
or so I've read the entire thing at my leisure. On top of that When people
come over and I start ranting about programming I have physical implements to
push my point - "look at this book!!" I almost scream as I reach for the
sacred yellowed tome, "It's from the 80s and it's more relevant than 90% of
everything that's come since!"

Also the chance of lending someone a book or record and having a meaningful
discourse follow from that incident (during/post lending) is much greater than
just saying "check out w3c" or "listen to minor threat on myspace".

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mattmcknight
I am in the process of going digital on books- having just moved a couple of
thousand books in and out of boxes a few times, it's just not worth it. It
just doesn't work for everything. Some kinds of books- cookbooks, API
reference guides, things with diagrams and pictures, large books, etc. just
don't play well on the current set of devices. The key thing I am missing so
far is the ability to lend/give books that I am done with- even though no one
seems to want my out of date technical books. There is no resale value on
digital goods.

Maybe the solution to Rands' problem is a projector that shines a picture of a
bookshelf with simulated spines onto the wall where your real bookshelf used
to be, or maybe he could read your Amazon reviews.

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scottjackson
My bookshelf has (apart from books) scale models of the Thunderbirds on it
(<http://is.gd/29V4K>). I'm not sure what that says about me.

Rands is so right though. You can tell a lot about someone from their
bookshelf (arrangement, order, placement, etc).

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rfreytag
People that think they can encapsulate you by looking at X-attribute usually
lock in some (comfortable to them) simplification and reject further
information that breaks their understanding if it's 'good' or can be much
later disappointed if it's 'bad.'

Just look at the API the person offers you at your current user privileges.
Digging into internals just results in leaky abstractions and buggy
dependencies (e.g. Why are you looking for the books their hiding? Do you have
trust issues?).

Keep it simple.

