I have been collecting a lot of books about topics that interest me — mainly coffee, technology, and Japanese fiction — for the last two years. I have ended up with about 80-100 books. How many books do you have in your personal library? Do you buy books for reference materials or only recreational reading?
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It may be relevant for context that by HN standards I am Old -- a little over 50 -- so I've had some time to accumulate (a) books and (b) enough money to afford a house with enough wall-space for those books to fit comfortably. :-)
Leftmost column is mathematics. Next column is mathematics shading into computing (the top shelf is numerical analysis and the like). Next column is mostly physics and physics-adjacent science, with some psychology/neuroscience at the bottom. Rightmost column is other science.
There's another smaller wall with economics, business, finance, history, politics, social commentary, miscellaneous humanities, philosophy, religion[1], and reference books.
[1] I'm not an adherent of any religion, but for many years I was and I have retained a little interest in theological matters despite now thinking that the religion in question is wrong about pretty much everything.
Fiction is in the bedroom and on the landing. Other subjects are elsewhere (e.g., music is in the same room as the piano; language and books-about-literature are in the guest bedroom).
Books with their spines facing up instead of out are ones I haven't read yet. I don't guarantee that I have read every page of every other book, though.
The presence of a book on those shelves is not necessarily an endorsement. I have some books I don't think are very good but that I don't dislike enough to throw them away :-).
(There isn't actually anything super-secret displayed on the monitor but I thought I should censor it as a matter of principle. The other thing that might look like an information leak is the front of a DVD box, but that happens to be a box with no actual DVD in it and I don't even remember why I have it. :-) )
Of the fiction section, most of it is in English, with some Dutch (obviously, being Dutch) and German as well. About half of the fiction is science fiction or fantasy; from classics to modern. The other half is a collection of all sorts of literary works; featuring plenty of classics, but also more recent works.
A full wall¹ of our living room is shelving for books. One thing we are particularly happy with is that since building this bookcase we've had a child who at three now knows no better than that reading is completely normal and a pleasant diversion. Despite not being a reader himself yet, he does consume books at a good rate, either being read to or just browsing the picture books by himself.
1: Photos from just after building it: https://twitter.com/jdhoek/status/885499829052485632
For a more interesting story, look to the origins of the Warburg Library in London [0]: the eldest heir of a wealthy banking family passed on his considerable inheritance on the condition that his brother would purchase any books in any quantities that he wanted. This incredible and unclassifiable collection of 6000+ primary source books, which formed the basis of its owners' incredible and unclassifiable historical research, can still be consulted today [1].
[0] https://warburg.sas.ac.uk/library/about-library/library-aby-... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aby_Warburg
I've moved approximately 10 times across 3 countries, and my books travel with me. They form the bulk of the weight of my belongings -- fortunately I always worked for multinationals and moving/packing costs were always fully covered as part of my relocation packages. I think I had 40-50 boxes worth of books for my last move.
I own e-books too but I'm not a big fan because I get distracted too easily by digital devices and am not able to muster the deep attention needed to get through a book. So I read paper books. I usually have 1 in the bathroom, 2-3 in the car that I take with my to cafes and restaurants, and 2-3 that I read in my living room.
I don't finish all the books I start -- I'm an incorrigible book non-completist. But I usually manage the extract enough value that I don't really need to finish. Most modern books are 80% fluff written to satisfy book publishers. The core message can usually be conveyed in around the length of an essay.
Some books I keep for nostalgia, such as The Art Of Electronics, which was life changing for me. But I'm trying to be more selective of those books.
I read a lot of fiction, history, biography. Some of those books I get as gifts, and try to pass them on to another reader. I try to make use of my public library when possible, because I still do prefer reading from a book rather than electronically.
I've moved most of my sheet music to electronic. That's an area where technology is actually an improvement.
These days I gravitate towards having them in digital form because that's far less waste of space. Years ago though, all my books were in paper format, mainly paper-back, but quite a lot in hard-cover. I prefer my reference books to remain as a physical book.
Several years ago, I made a conscious effort to replace as many physical books as I could with their digital equivalents. (I also did the same thing with my CDs and DVDs) That probably reduced the space taken up by 'stuff' down to about a quarter of what it had been previously.
About 75 of them are programming related, books I bought or school books that I kept around. The majority of those are digital books though. The rest is a mix of language learning, personal development and some philosophy books.
I think in the future I'll probably throw out a lot more, because I barely re-read anything so it just takes up space. And I'll probably move to more PDF books if I can find them in that format instead of some proprietary e-reader format.
This year I want to read The Brothers Karamazov, 1984 and I'll probably end up re-reading Marcus Aurelius' Meditations again, I end up re-reading most of that every year.
My ebook library is much bigger. Several hundred to low thousands depending on whether stuff like individual comics count. I don't currently have it well organized and in one place. There's also the question of whether PDFs of books I downloaded from the library count as books I own? (Some never expire).
There's a mix of reference material and recreational but it's mostly recreational, at least stuff I purchased. I'm still not satisfied with the state of ePub textbooks so I'll only buy digitally as a last resort option.