"The truly cultured are capable of owning thousands of books without losing their composure or their desire for more."
Published November 06, 2003
Gabriel Zaid, author of "So Many Books: Reading and Publishing in an Age of Abundance." Coincidentally, Sara Nelson's latest, just released, is entitled "So Many Books, So Little Time: A Year of Passionate Reading."
I must confess to an occasional twinge of unhappiness as my "to read" shelves grow ever fuller, far faster than I can read the constantly arriving stream of books from amazon. I looked at my credit card statements for the past several months: I'm averaging 15-20 new books a month! No wonder I'm so befuddled.
The theme of a plethora of books has arisen for millenia. It was even noted in The Bible (listen to Ecclesiastes 12:12 here): "Of making many books there is no end." Or, as a contemporary of Edward Gibbon remarked, on the publication of yet another volume of "The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire": "Scribble, scribble, scribble - yet another fat book, eh, Mr. Gibbon?"
Fun fact: there is a new book published every 30 seconds.
- "The truly cultured are capable of owning thousands of books without losing their composure or their desire for more."
- Published: November 06, 2003
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- Section: Books
- Writer: bookofjoe
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I have to hide my "to be read" pile so my wife doesn't notice it getting bigger...
i'm lucky in that both me & my wife are book-o-holics.
so the the only danger is tripping over the piles.
I think I probably buy them that quick too. When I moved out of my apartment in June my best friend was a tad perturbed to say the least. 65% of the boxes we moved contained nothing but books. Now with most of my precious literature sitting in a storage room, I am afraid my car has become a mobile library. And still I want more!!
Woe is me...
you have to either be calm and take it one at a time, or dispense with books and go for shorter-form material. Why do you think the Internet is so popular?
be calm?!!
dude, time's 'a wastin'!! there's books out there!!
(i'll post photos when all that's left of floor space in my house is the path between the shoulder-height book piles)
I wish I could just have a percentage of my check go directly to B&N, Books A Million, Borders and Lemuria. It would save a helluva lotta time.
I gave up years ago and just use the library. My to-read stack is hundreds of titles long, and my credit statement is relatively healthy as a result.
The problem with that is I need to own the book. I may want to reference it later or mount it on the wall as trophy, regardless I need unconditional access to the words at all time. I think its the Bibliophile in me.
Hi! My name is Dew and I'm a book-a-holic.
as the saged Martini Ranch sang, "How can the laboring man find time for self culture?"
Dew hits the nail on the head: the key is having the book right there. Dew the Do, I say!
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what's really bad is when you have several "to be read" piles...and you lose track of what's in 'em.
happens to me all the time.