/lit/ - Literature

I read a lot of referential books and history books, so I think it's more or less necessary to keep my books in case I need to flip back and reread parts in order to understand something better.
Plus, I do reread a couple books every year. I try to keep things on my shelves that I would be happy selecting at random for casual reading.

If you're not just hoarding them to try and show off, why not -- books deserve a physical presence in our lives. Or maybe I just believe that because of propaganda, no one thought they needed a personal library until Edward Bernays convinced them so.

>>3596340
>since I never really re-read
Enjoy never finding gold each time you mine the pages.

the books you don't re-read are probably not worth reading at all

I love personal libraries.

My forty-year goal is to build and curate a circular library. Maybe a smaller version of the Radcliffe Camera at Oxford.

I'll be viewed as an eccentric by the provincials, yes, but what do they know of beauty?

>>3596367
What sort of works will be in it?

>>3596376
Genre Fiction

I have a ton of books that aren't fiction, so I kinda need everything to be orderly. I keep them out of sight, and you aren't going to see it unless you are in my bedroom. If you are in my bedroom, you are most likely either me or about to fuck me. and the latter is not likely

>>3596358
never too late to start i guess. i have been wanting to go back to some and pick out quotes that really made an impression on me

>>3596340
I keep the books I've read on a couple of bookshelves in my living room. If someone says something about havingwanting to read a book on the bookshelf I give them the book or if they say something about having liked a book on the bookshelf I give them something else by that author or something that i think they might like. It means I get to talk about the book with someone once they've read it, allows me to get rid of books I've bought and don't read anymore, and I'm able to share something I love

>>3596340
I keep mine for three reasons,

First of all, It does look nice to have books.

Secondly, I re-read quite often.

Third, I spent money on them, so I like to keep them. I want to have a nice library by the time I'm older.

>>3596340
thought that guy was holding a shotgun at first.

>>3596425
It is a cane, it can still be a shotgun.

>>3596359
yes. also Eco rocks.

>>3596408
>I want to have a nice library by the time I'm older.

Your local Salvation Army will be grateful to receive it once you kick the bucket.

You book fetishists crack me up. Carry the books in your mind and you'll thank yourself for it.

>>3596454
can't reread a book from your mind can you?

>>3596340
I think my laptop has 1000 books and essays on it.

That being said it pales in comparison to actually reading a book.

>dat smell of paper
>dat sound when you turn a page

Also I think a large, personal library with solid oak floors, maybe a massive fireplace would be a fucking amazing place to just hang out, do drugs, read obviously, and entertain company.

Well if you inherit one or already have one good on you. Most of big old libraries tended to be tomes of encyclopedias and papers of the sort.

I abhor that John Waters quote about fucking and books, it sums up the toolness of people who call themselves bookish. Doesn't mean I think shelves themselves are a showoffy move.

But them I started reading books out of impulse from pirated mobi files and have been doing it since for about four years. Otherwise I will have never get to know or read some translations, editions, research works, anthologies, etc from any other place not even uni's library.

That way I don't posses this material nostalgia >>3596463 talks about and probably never will. I do buy paper books for gifts but I keep mines digital.

Tangentially related but something that keeps working like an ad hoc lobbying movement for paper books is actually writers themselves. Some say they would never use a ereader or a tablet, it doesn't feel right, etc. Because some of them, the ones that make a statement about it when asked, tend to be people in their 50's who have held paper for at least thirty years. And that romantic fad it's a thing you never saw on the ipod's and .mp3 advent.

Then there are people who swear they wouldn't work as good on their fascinating research if there weren't dozens of books open around their laptop and I did the lion share of my masters with .pdf's.

Good thing is now I can choose and that people too.

Cheers.

P.S.: I'm reading Foucault's Pendulum and liking it a lot.

>>3596577

mind the typos and grammar errs, I was about to hit the bed

>>3596340
I have a large collection of books and I keep them on shelves because I have nowhere else to put them. I don't think it's pretentious in the slightest.

I keep all of my books on shelves in the closet. Plus, 50% of what the books I read are ebooks. Displaying books is just a waste of space.

Keeping books that you've already finished is stupid, unless you have a sentimental attachment/association with the physical book itself.

>>3596583
>I don't think it's pretentious in the slightest.
Pretentious people never do

I find it kind of strange to buy something if I'm not going to keep it.. books are a bitch to dust around, though.

>>3596592
>keeping books you've already finished is stupid

I honestly don't understand people who never reread a book. You're either not that into literature(in which case why are you in /lit/?), or you read nothing but forgettable trash that probably wasn't worth it the first time.

I want to create underground tunnels beneath my home which I can live in and travel around in. All the walls would be lined with thousands of books.

>>3597443
i have impeccable memory, and besides I keep all the quotes I've written down from each book I've read.

THE FACT THAT YOU ASSUME THAT THE PRIMARY PURPOSE OF PLACING BOOKS ON SHELVES IS FOR "PUBLIC DISPLAY", MAKES YOU "PRETENTIOUS", NOT THE FACT THAT YOU PLACE BOOKS ON SHELVES.