
What unread books can teach us (2015) - Tomte
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2015/jun/26/umberto-eco-antilibrary-oliver-burkeman
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ChuckMcM
I instituted a 90 day rule which was buying something started a clock that I
had to use it within 90 days. It is a silly rule but it helped cut down on
what I saw as a problem of buying things I conceptually liked the idea of
using but for which time would not allow.

The result is having unopened specialized integrated circuits from a
manufacturer that no longer exists :-(. The same thing with books, I had
accumulated probably 20 or 30 books which I wanted to read but never seem to
have the time. So now when I buy a book I set the timer for when it must be
read or used and that has both saved me money and cut down on my stress.

The stress comes from looking at a book I own, and have owned for a while, but
haven't read so I don't really know if it is worth keeping!

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gukov
Great approach

Did you have to "declare bankruptcy" when it came to existing items? What
happens if you finally decide or really have to read a book from "before?"

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ChuckMcM
I continue to work through the backlog :-) But an example of where it hurt me
was buying some excellent books on 3D graphics after my time available to
write 3D code was waning. I'm still interested in 3D graphics but since I
haven't had a really easy to use environment for learning since the 3dfx
library died I don't spend a lot of time there. There is a lot of friction
between starting with an idea and pushing it through the OpenGL or DX12 APIs.

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pklausler
I live in a town with a truly world-class bookstore (no accident, that) and I
have a rule that I will return any book that turns out to not be worth
finishing for store credit, which they (Powell's City of Books) are really
good about. Unfinished books used to pile up on my nightstand, even if they
had stellar reviews (looking at you, "The Nix"), but being ruthless with this
rule has really cut down on wasted reading time and expense.

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throwaway7645
I love Powell's Books. I could live there.

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supergetting
I have all my books in a public storage facility, I'm gonna donate every
single one to Goodwill or some other thrift store. Trying to be book-free for
the rest of my life - ebooks are great.

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jamestimmins
This hits home, because I recently made a list of all the unread books I own,
and marked whether they were purchased (by me), gifts, or on loan. I was
shocked by the number, and instituted a rule of not buying anymore books until
I've read all of the ones I currently own that I intend to read.

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throwaway7645
80% of my personal library is unread. Never enough time to read everything I
want to.

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douche
I'm getting there... Summer helps - I don't know what it is, but there seems
to be more time in the day, even if I get up and go to bed at the same time
during the winter.

