Re: Small libraries

From: Technotranscendence (neptune@mars.superlink.net)
Date: Sun Sep 17 2000 - 00:49:19 MDT


On Saturday, September 16, 2000 11:46 AM Jason Joel Thompson
jasonjthompson@home.com wrote:
> > As for books in general, they're neat, but I don't fetishize them. It's
> > their information I enjoy, not the physical act of handling or smelling
> > them. (Not that I'm some kind of antisensualist. I definitely like
> > physical acts of other sorts.:)
>
> In general I probably pay somewhat less than average attention to the
> maintenance and grooming of the physical objects in my life-- with the
> glaring exception of my books.
>
> I've read many of the books in my collection without breaking their
spine--
> indeed, without fully opening them. (The softcovers primarily...)

I take care of my books, too, but that's only because I want them to last.
I often refer to them, especially the nonfiction ones on mathematics,
physics, biology, philosophy, and history.

> Accordingly, despite the fact that I don't appear to have the 'packrat'
> gene, my books seem to be the one thing with which I am unable to part.

I used to be the same way, until I got tired of lugging them around. Once I
moved in with roommates -- after college, that is -- I couldn't just put my
books anywhere like I did before. (When I was in college, it didn't matter
because my roommate didn't hassle me about it. Also, he didn't see my books
as community property. Not so when I moved in with R & V after college.:)

I started to ask myself if I really needed to keep every last paperback I
read, including the ones I knew I'd never read again and ones I downright
did not like. Those were the first to go. But my collection has grown
anyway. Just today, I bought four books and a journal...:/ (And three of
these are mathematics books, which I will read and keep for reference. The
journal I'll probably keep too. So, there's a net gain of four out of
five.)

Cheers!

Daniel Ust
http://uweb.superlink.net/neptune/



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