[HN Gopher] Building an antilibrary: the power of unread books
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Building an antilibrary: the power of unread books
Author : surprisetalk
Score : 14 points
Date : 2024-01-05 11:26 UTC (2 days ago)
(HTM) web link (nesslabs.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (nesslabs.com)
| MountainMan1312 wrote:
| > People don't walk around with anti-resumes telling you what
| they have not studied or experienced
|
| I kind of like this idea.
| shric wrote:
| Yes, an anti-resume listing only what one has not studied or
| experienced but limited to things that one has even the vaguest
| aspirations of one day studying or experiencing would be a
| great thing to have.
| Wistar wrote:
| Hmm. A tsundokume?
|
| https://bigthink.com/neuropsych/do-i-own-too-many-books/
| BeetleB wrote:
| "Built without Machine Learning" is something I like to boast
| about.
| urthor wrote:
| Ha. This is excellent.
| _benj wrote:
| > a private library is not an ego-boosting appendage but a
| research tool
|
| Honestly this is not a terrible approach. Years ago I bought TLPI
| and TAOE and have in felt a little guilty when I see them in my
| library (TBH being displayed with a bit of pride) but I haven't
| read them.
|
| The thing is that it's been actually multiple times when I need
| to look up how to write to pipes in C or how to use a FET and
| I've just gone upstairs, grab the book and learn all I need to
| know. Sure, there's kagi and chatgpt but I'd argue that both of
| those resources are not the same level of quality than a good
| book is!
|
| Same has happened a Lua book, multiple Maths books and so on...
| bought them aspiring to read them, felt guilty about not reading
| them cover to cover, turns out they have been actually useful
| when I least expected.
|
| Than Taleb would come up with the idea of an antilibrary in black
| swan makes a lot of sense... that might be another I might need
| to buy and not read :-)
| karaterobot wrote:
| I have a lot of bookshelves along a wall of my house. People say
| "wow, how many of those books have you read?" and I say "almost
| none of them".
|
| If I read a book, I usually get rid of it by selling it to a used
| bookstore, or handing it to somebody else. I buy books that look
| interesting when I see them, then take them home and shelve them,
| and promptly forget about them. When I want to read a new book, I
| browse my shelves the same way I'd browse at a bookstore, except
| every single book is interesting, or was at once time.
|
| Sure, it's insane, but it's what I like to do.
|
| A side effect is that I occasionally buy the same books several
| times, either because I want to reread it, or just because I
| forget that I've bought it already. That doesn't bother me, they
| all come from used bookstores I want to support anyway.
|
| I have separate shelves for books I don't want to get rid of,
| like nice editions and heirlooms. But for the most part, almost
| all the books I own are unread, despite reading being one of the
| things I do the most.
| sfpotter wrote:
| I've had an anti-library for a good long while now, and what I've
| noticed is that occasionally I'll realize that I book I have is
| the perfect primer for a subject I need to get quickly up to
| speed on. This is usually only because I've spent some time
| thumbing through it already since it's been on my shelf for
| years. I'll subsequently devour the book and feel a great deal of
| satisfaction at the stars having aligned like this. It happens
| rarely but it's a nice treat, and always feels like taking a
| knowledge power pill.
| dvaun wrote:
| Consider it your professional library.
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(page generated 2024-01-07 23:00 UTC)