Re: [Meta] Wait, you sort your books how???

On 7/17/2024 1:38 AM, Titus G wrote:

On 17/07/24 03:37, Cryptoengineer wrote:

On 7/16/2024 1:37 AM, Titus G wrote:

On 16/07/24 02:01, Tony Nance wrote:

On 7/15/24 9:54 AM, Tony Nance wrote:

On 7/15/24 9:48 AM, Ted Nolan <tednolan> wrote:

In article <v738di$n4rq$1@dont-email.me>,
Tony Nance  <tnusenet17@gmail.com> wrote:

>
More signs of madness in this crazy world:
>
I just ran across the results of a poll that asked 29,000 Americans
about their book-owning habits, and friends, I am shocked —
shocked! —
to report that there are people who have absolutely no organizational
system whatsoever. Worse — worse, I tell you — there are some who
sort
their books by color. Color!
>
Here’s a link to the main source (published in October):
https://today.yougov.com/society/articles/47712-how-many-books-americans-own-and-how-they-organize-them
>
Tony

>
I could read the link, I suppose, but I wonder how many people
actually
have a sufficient number of books such that they need to be organized.

>
That is indeed a point mentioned in the article.
- Tony
>

>
Whoops - I thought I hit "draft" while I looked it up, but instead I
must have hit "publish by accident" ... anyhow:
>
That is indeed a point mentioned in the article:
"One in five Americans (20%) say they own between one and 10 physical
books, while 14% own between 11 and 25 books, and 13% between 26 and
50."
>
Tony

>
I thought I owned about 50 real books but after curiosity motivated a
count, I discovered I own 140 of which about 30 are of SF genre in a
separate bookcase in no particular order other than series/trilogies in
sequence. The children's books are together as are the 1960's FI and
Indianapolis racing books but the rest are a muddle. All are simply dust
collectors including the 30 SF favourites as they are duplicated as
ebooks using Calibre. When I finish reading a book, I delete it from the
Kindle on which I store books to be read, collections and some
non-fiction stuff. My understanding is that I do not legally own ebooks
on my PC in Calibre whose library system is suitable for me for 2000+
ebooks.
>
When I do enter the spare bedroom where the SF bookcase is, I do get a
small pleasure from speed reading the titles, a different experience to
reading a title in Calibre.

>
How many e books have you bought?

 I do not know. I 'inherited' a large number with my first Kindle.
Initially I snaffled everything free I could find including Gutenburg.
I don't read anything online, but download it, convert to plain text and
open with Calibre to read on the Kindle. There might be 100 things
written by me. Overall I have over 2,000 items in the Calibre Library.
1 think I have had the Kindle for 9 years and have read 75 to a 100 pa
so perhaps I have 'bought' 6 to 700. Even the free books from Amazon
aren't really bought but actually just rented.
 

>
I (and I expect many of the regulars in this group) own well over a
thousand physical books. It was one of the hallmarks of an SF fan
until ebooks became viable.

 I am not a fanatic as is Dimwire with his love of every young adult or
survivalist apology for SF. I think my first SF book after decades of
sporadic exposure, was Considerable Fleabites which I found amazing, (I
might have read it soon after almost losing the will to live from over a
million words in the dreadful In Rememberance Of Things Past.) It is the
only Ian M that I own although I have read all his novels, several more
than once and all from the library.
 

>
A favorite quote on the topic:
>
"I am a product of long corridors, empty sunlit rooms, upstairs indoor
silences, attics explored in solitude, distant noises of gurgling
cisterns and pipes, and the noise of wind under the tiles. Also, of
endless books. My father bought all the books he read and never got rid
of any of them. There were books in the study, books in the drawing
room, books in the cloakroom, books (two deep) in the great bookcase on
the landing, books in a bedroom, books piled as high as my shoulder in
the cistern attic...In the seemingly endless rainy afternoons I took
volume after volume from the shelves. I had always the same certainty of
finding a book that was new to me as a man who walks into a field has of
finding a new blade of grass."
>
  - CS Lewis

 My father and uncle exchanged books at Christmas and birthdays. When
everybody in the family had read them they were returned to be read by
the other family before disappearing I know not where, perhaps charity
sales or other rellies. As children, we owned books but mainly read from
school libraries. All of my Science Fiction reading came free from the
city library which also stocked paperbacks. Only one of my friends
shared this interest and he also owned no books. I have been a library
user until ebooks with the only paper SF books bought by me being
already read favourites from the library to be reread or referred to.
I would like to clear my non SF books which I will never read again but
am too lazy. I can not imagine owning over a thousand real books and
have no wish to do so.

Different strokes....
BTW:
I just realized that the CS Lewis quite was slightly bowdlerized by
the source from which I cut it.
IIRC, the lacuna after 'cistern attic' originally contained:
"Books suitable for children, and books most emphatically not. None
were forbidden me."
pt