[HN Gopher] 70k Books Found in Hidden Library in This Germany Ho...
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70k Books Found in Hidden Library in This Germany Home (2023)
Author : eatonphil
Score : 70 points
Date : 2026-03-06 12:20 UTC (10 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (bookstr.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (bookstr.com)
| lava_pidgeon wrote:
| I'm not sure about other countries. There is a culture refuse to
| throw away books in Germany. People would put on the streets for
| free (I found two interesting books with this method).
| gom_jabbar wrote:
| German book culture is great! When he was in Karlsruhe to
| profile Peter Sloterdijk, The New Yorker reporter Thomas Meaney
| seemed surprised by it:
|
| "Over the summer, ordinary Germans who spotted his [Peter
| Sloterdijk] books in my hands engaged me in conversation on
| trains, in coffee shops, at universities, and in bookshops."
| [0]
|
| [0] https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/02/26/a-celebrity-
| ph...
| msskskkd wrote:
| wild, when I went to germany I only saw kebabs and barber
| shops
|
| and a rave
| welcome_dragon wrote:
| I mean what are they going to do? Burn them? Oh wait...
| WalterBright wrote:
| > People would put on the streets for free
|
| In the US people put "Little Free Libraries" in their yards.
| They're all over the place in the Seattle area.
| sitkack wrote:
| Some dude was giving away books after his talk at the CPP
| Users Group in Redmond, got some good sci-fi.
| WalterBright wrote:
| That was me!
| mrweasel wrote:
| Every now and then I need to go to the recycling station here
| in Denmark. They have a special container/dumpster just for
| books. The second hand shops will take a small quantum of
| books, stores the buy and resell old DVDs, games, records,
| porn, comics and what-not, no longer buy books as there's no
| profit in second hand books. The dumpster is always overflowing
| with books, books that you're not allowed to take.
|
| Germany is a lot more conservative than Denmark, so I wouldn't
| be surprised if they where more reluctant to throw out books.
| On the other hand, other than myself, how many people really
| want to read random novels from the 1970s or a 140 year old
| book on economics, telling you that Trump is wrong about
| tariffs?
|
| Maybe with the advent of LLMs, old books will get a resurgence.
| If a book is printed in the 20th century, at least I know it's
| written by humans.
| mjd wrote:
| But you nobody can read 70k books, so what was the point? He had
| a library nobody knew about, full of books he hadn't read.
|
| That's not a library, it's an imitation of a library built by
| someone who doesn't understand what a library is for.
| pixelmelt wrote:
| Hoarding/archiving/collecting is quite fun. I don't think it's
| a stretch to say he likely read more then the average person,
| and from his own collection too!
| gus_massa wrote:
| [I had to do the calculation: 70K/365 ~= 192 years, i.e. 2.5 or
| 3 books per day assuming a standard lifetime. Yep, it's a lot
| of books.]
| gnatman wrote:
| Not every book in a library is meant to be read like a novel.
| Some books need only be referenced, briefly and periodically.
| craftwerk wrote:
| There's an interesting term from the book the Black Swan, an
| antilibrary, which gains value from books that haven't been
| read, but are at hand. Essentially resources for new ideas.
| jacquesm wrote:
| That's roughly on par with saying nobody needs the internet or
| a library at all.
|
| Back the 1920s having a personal library was fairly common for
| people with more than two dimes, they had this thing called an
| 'Ex Libris' which roughly translates as 'from the books of'.
| This was a little piece of paper, often very nicely designed
| that you glued to the first page of a book and then you could
| borrow it freely and sooner or later it would find its way back
| to you.
|
| This was the rough equivalent of wikipedia, only a lot slower
| and less convenient. Then encyclopedias (which existed for a
| long time) became larger and larger, I had one from the 18th
| century that got lost in a move but it was a work of art, so
| much effort had gone into making that. The encyclopedias of the
| newer ages were however far larger and covered more subjects.
| Ever year a new batch of pages or the occasional reprint was
| the norm. And then personal libraries went the way of the dodo.
| Every time one of my family members dies there is always the
| same question: what will happen to all the books. These people
| - and me too - spent a fortune on their books, untold tens of
| thousands over a lifetime. They were well read, not 'browsing'
| information but actually reading - and occasionally writing.
|
| That library in the article is exceptional in one way: that it
| does not look like it was shared. But I can totally sympathize:
| some people are focused on the number of digits on their bank
| account, others derive their sense of wealth and accomplishment
| from their bookshelves. I don't own any books I have not read,
| but I do understand people buying books that they intend to
| read at some point but never get around to.
|
| As these things go, I'd be happy have a million more book
| hoarders, even if they don't read them all, so they can be
| passed on to the next generation of booklovers, assuming they
| can still be found.
| skyberrys wrote:
| The slanted library lining the attic of his home is to die for. I
| could easily see this happening to myself in my old age. I love
| books and it's quite a challenge to keep and collect all of them.
| Why haven't I thought of slanted ceiling book cases before? And
| 70k books by the time you are 88, that's only 1000 books per year
| after age 18. Okay that does work out to more than 3 books a day,
| so reading every single one is challenging, but in your old age
| an unread book is something to look forward to. I'm sad to read
| that he's passed away.
| e28eta wrote:
| I went to a local estate sale of a professor, whose entire
| downstairs (4+ rooms) was filled with bookshelves full of books.
| They were well organized by topic, and covered a range of topics
| (math, science, health, fiction, biographies, etc). It was more
| functional than artistic, comparing it to the pics in this post,
| but the number of books was probably the same order of magnitude
| as our local public library's collection, or a small bookstore.
|
| I went at the end of the 2 or 3 day sale, and it still looked
| full. They were charging fair prices for the used books, but were
| going to pay to haul the remainder to the dump. I'm still unhappy
| about the waste, even though I mostly understand it.
| wizardforhire wrote:
| Disheartening to say the least. A cache like that would sure to
| a have single volume that would more than pay for the price to
| pay to have them moved and stored for a year... the idea that
| there are countless volumes of that caliber most likely in a
| collection like that means whomever is responsible is literally
| throwing money away... based on what you've described I could
| easily see a collection like that fetching at least a hundred
| thousand dollars, maybe substantially more.
| WalterBright wrote:
| The thrift stores take them. No need for the dump.
| kwertyoowiyop wrote:
| My experience was different. Even the local library was
| dumping a lot of donated books, which was surprising since
| they did have book sales.
| gom_jabbar wrote:
| This reminds me of Peter Sloterdijk describing books as
| "bewusstseinserweiternde Drogen" (mind-expanding drugs) and
| "Waffen" (weapons) in his working library. [0]
|
| [0] https://youtu.be/Wn5EgkuQb5U?t=293 (4:53)
| WalterGR wrote:
| I'm not familiar with the "modern car" unit of weight.
|
| "With an assumed average weight of 300 to 400 grams per book, the
| weight of around 15 _modern cars_ is currently stored in
| Schroder's detached house."
|
| 350 grams x 70,000 books = 24,500 kg. About 54,000 lbs.
|
| Can a 'typical' house bear that weight??
| Matticus_Rex wrote:
| Depends on the size of the house and both the flooring and the
| foundation. Just before that the article mentions that a
| structural engineer was consulted and said it was fine, and you
| get a lot of mileage out of having most of the weight connected
| to the frame.
| throwup238 wrote:
| _> Can a 'typical' house bear that weight??_
|
| Modern builds codes require living areas to support 30-40
| pounds per square foot live load so while you wouldn't want to
| pack it all in a 1k sq ft second floor apartment, it's doable
| in a larger space.
|
| If it's an old house that was overbuilt before building codes
| were optimized, chances are it can support it. It also matters
| a lot whether this is an upper story, or just a single floor
| detached house sitting on a concrete foundation.
| hermitcrab wrote:
| 4.90 x the mass of an African bull elephant 2.04 x the mass of
| a London double decker bus 0.122 x the mass of a blue whale
|
| http://howmanyelephants.co.uk/
| WalterGR wrote:
| Why the article didn't express it in units of blue whale is
| beyond me.
| geniium wrote:
| What is very surprising for me is the height of the books. If you
| look closer at the picture, seems that most of the books are the
| same height, so that's very strange for any book collection
| except if he was collecting the same book editors or... Am
| missing something ?
| WalterBright wrote:
| Yah, I noticed that, too.
| vunderba wrote:
| That was the first thing I noticed - a lot of those book covers
| look shockingly uniform. Maybe there's more standardization in
| localized German publishers?
| WorldMaker wrote:
| The article noted that at least some of the sections had been
| organized by publisher, so that could increase the uniformity
| within those sections.
|
| Similarly, sorting and measuring all the books by height _and
| weight_ may have been a part of the project of planning the
| shelves in the first place. It does look like an attempt at
| efficient packing, which I suppose you would need to keep
| that many books in that house and relates to the structural
| engineer 's surprise that the the weight was well distributed
| as well. (Professional libraries have made mistakes in
| planning the weight of shelves because books are heavier than
| you think they are, especially when shelved. That was an
| interesting finding.)
|
| All of that implied work is more shame that the likeliest
| outcome after the owner's passing is that the books will be
| separated from the shelves and the house. It almost feels
| like the whole thing should have been preserved as a museum.
| I suppose it helps that there will at least be photos and
| notes about it like this article.
| blywi wrote:
| I think the answer is in the article text "all meticulously
| sectioned by publisher". Book sizes differ somewhat between
| publishers, but each publisher tends to only print books in a
| few standard sizes. For the paperback editions this is even
| more reduced, it usually looks to me like all paperbacks from
| one publisher are the same size.
| jacquesm wrote:
| Space savings... when you get to those numbers it starts to
| matter and I think he just saw a shortcut because the same
| format books store more compactly together and usually print
| the same authors.
| IncreasePosts wrote:
| The infamous Bookshelf of Procrustes where every book fits -
| too tall books have their tops lopped off and too short books
| are stretched out.
| lukan wrote:
| I think he sorted them by height. If you look closer you can
| see also shelfs with different sized books that were too non
| standard.
| WalterBright wrote:
| My dad left me several thousand books. Mostly about airplanes and
| warfare.
| elevation wrote:
| If you have a library that you want to keep out of the
| landfill, your job is not storing them, but convincing another
| human being (who's younger than you) that the books are of
| value. If no one you know has ever borrowed or expressed
| interest in them, then the shelf you relegate them to is as
| good as the landfill.
| WalterBright wrote:
| I keep the ones I want and sell the rest to used bookstores
| or give them to the thrift stores.
|
| I tried selling some on Amazon. That doesn't work at all.
| rrr_oh_man wrote:
| ...do you still have any?
| WalterBright wrote:
| only ones I want to keep
| vunderba wrote:
| I wish they had talked a bit more about how he managed to re-read
| any of the books, because from the pictures a great deal of them
| seemed like they were rather inaccessible.
| black6 wrote:
| He probably didn't even read all of them once. Books are like
| wine: you don't have to drink all the wine you have before
| buying more.
| stagger87 wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsundoku
| vunderba wrote:
| A friend of mine has _mad Jenga style stacks_ of manga all
| over his flat and I will be forwarding this word to him.
| nurettin wrote:
| 7k for 70,000 books sounds insane.
| chickensong wrote:
| Awesome. I bet the acoustics of the house are very interesting.
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