Books
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There's having 30 books, and 10.000 books. There's probably a sweet spot somewhere in the middle. No one needs 10.000 books.
Some people read a hundred books in their lifetime and keep 30. The 10k books on those shelves only represent a small part of what I have read in my lifetime.
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I’ve seen interviews with him where he mentioned: ‘I was reading a synopsis of a story that sounded really interesting’ only to discover that it was about a book that he had written. And apparently he has no memory of writing Cujo.
There’s ‘doing coke’ and ‘doing coke so much I forgot I wrote a fucking best selling novel’.
I read one of his short stories recently that followed one of the characters whose child died in Cujo. I love the idea of Stephen King completely forgetting he wrote that book and having to go back and read it to come up with characters for his later stories. Do you suppose while reading he was like "Damn this book is great, I wonder what'll happen next?"
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Some people read a hundred books in their lifetime and keep 30. The 10k books on those shelves only represent a small part of what I have read in my lifetime.
wrote on last edited by [email protected]That's an impressive claim, but let's break down the math here. To read 10,000 books in your lifetime (that you claim is only a small part of books read), you'd need to maintain an absolutely relentless pace that borders on the impossible.
Let's assume a typical book averages around 70,000 words (roughly 200-300 pages). The average adult reads at about 238 words per minute, which means ech book would take approximately 5 hours of pure reading time. Multiply that by 10,000 books and you're looking at 50,000 hours of reading - that's equivalent to working a full-time job for 24 years straight, doing nothing but reading.
Even if we're generous and assume you started reading seriously at age 10 and are now 70, that's 60 years of reading. To hit 10,000 books, you'd need to finish 167 books per year, or more than 3 books every single week for six decades. That means spending roughly 15 hours per week reading - every week, no breaks, no vacations, no life getting in the way.
The assumptions get even more problematic when you consider that this pace would need to be maintained through your childhood, school years, career building, relationships, and all of life's other demands. Most voracious readers I know average 50-100 books per year at their peak, and even that requires significant dedication.
For context, if you read one book per week for 50 years you'd reach about 2,600 books. Impressive, but nowhere near 10,000. Your claim would require either superhuman reading speed, an unusually broad definition of what counts as a "book," or some serious exaggeration. The math just doesn't add up for a realistic human lifestyle.
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I have never read all of his books because at some point I will have read his last book.
At that point, you can read them again.
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Anyone else have a redneck family that started dropping off endless truckloads of random used books from various flea markets at your home the very moment they found out that you like to read?
My parents sort of did this to me for a while.. I did get some books I ended up really liking this way but we also lived way out in the country so getting to a library was difficult. Didn’t have much choice but to try them.
But then they realized I was well beyond kids/young adult books and started giving me books they liked when I was in 5th grade, like sphere and the third pandemic.. my teachers thought it was super weird, and I got a lot of negative comments about age appropriate-ness, but I had a dictionary and undiagnosed autism (diagnosed adhd, though), it was fine.
I was so excited when we moved and I was walking distance from a library. I ended up getting 2 library cards so I could reserve a bunch of stuff and still check out 5 at a time (I was there usually twice a week, and would just burn through books at around 1,000 pages a day, because it was all I ever did)
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My apartment is 60% books. I don’t have enough bookshelves, I have most loaded to the point where they are bending and there are piles of books stacked on top. Stacks and stacks and stacks.
I think my library is almost an art project at this point. I thrift a lot, check out library discard sales and have a bunch of things I bought when you could get books on Amazon for a penny + shipping. I often pick up 5-10 a week, because at the thrift shop that’s maybe $10 at most. (Goodwill is getting precious, but the really ratty ones are often prime spots.)
Very little fiction. Mostly textbooks and history and language and arcane computer things and strange religious literature and philosophy and paranormal arcana. Obscure things - I mostly collect things that I wouldn’t normally be able to find in a library.
My ex hated my books and wanted to work out a deal where I’d have to give up two for every one I took in. Now I am free to live in a pile of stacks. I don’t care if it looks “messy” or “cluttered.” It represents my mind.
wrote on last edited by [email protected]At least when you die and archeologist find your trove we'll be able to deep learn your stack in order to recreate a cyber you.
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My parents sort of did this to me for a while.. I did get some books I ended up really liking this way but we also lived way out in the country so getting to a library was difficult. Didn’t have much choice but to try them.
But then they realized I was well beyond kids/young adult books and started giving me books they liked when I was in 5th grade, like sphere and the third pandemic.. my teachers thought it was super weird, and I got a lot of negative comments about age appropriate-ness, but I had a dictionary and undiagnosed autism (diagnosed adhd, though), it was fine.
I was so excited when we moved and I was walking distance from a library. I ended up getting 2 library cards so I could reserve a bunch of stuff and still check out 5 at a time (I was there usually twice a week, and would just burn through books at around 1,000 pages a day, because it was all I ever did)
wrote on last edited by [email protected]It's not that I'm not appreciative, it's just that a 40+ year old man like myself can handle only so many Julia Quinn, Emma Chase, and Tessa Dare books
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At least when you die and archeologist find your trove we'll be able to deep learn your stack in order to recreate a cyber you.
A goal of mine is to ensure that my library is preserved in some fashion after I die, because I do believe it would be valuable. Many of the books I have are out of print, rare, and obscure. I have a fantasy of a library room set aside with my collection - a couple of comfortable chairs in a little nook.
Especially with the way that AI has polluted information sources online, I think having a collection of the printed word which is guaranteed to be vetted and written by humans would be useful. The religious material I think also could be helpful in preserving history - eg, I have versions of Mormon books which are likely not consistent with current doctrine.
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That's an impressive claim, but let's break down the math here. To read 10,000 books in your lifetime (that you claim is only a small part of books read), you'd need to maintain an absolutely relentless pace that borders on the impossible.
Let's assume a typical book averages around 70,000 words (roughly 200-300 pages). The average adult reads at about 238 words per minute, which means ech book would take approximately 5 hours of pure reading time. Multiply that by 10,000 books and you're looking at 50,000 hours of reading - that's equivalent to working a full-time job for 24 years straight, doing nothing but reading.
Even if we're generous and assume you started reading seriously at age 10 and are now 70, that's 60 years of reading. To hit 10,000 books, you'd need to finish 167 books per year, or more than 3 books every single week for six decades. That means spending roughly 15 hours per week reading - every week, no breaks, no vacations, no life getting in the way.
The assumptions get even more problematic when you consider that this pace would need to be maintained through your childhood, school years, career building, relationships, and all of life's other demands. Most voracious readers I know average 50-100 books per year at their peak, and even that requires significant dedication.
For context, if you read one book per week for 50 years you'd reach about 2,600 books. Impressive, but nowhere near 10,000. Your claim would require either superhuman reading speed, an unusually broad definition of what counts as a "book," or some serious exaggeration. The math just doesn't add up for a realistic human lifestyle.
Lucky me has been a speed reader basically from the start. I cannot imagine how painfully slow 238 words per minute must feel. The brain has probably forgotten half of the story when the reader reaches the end of a book weeks later. As a teenager, I already read about five books a day. Autism has its advantages...
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Less book more feuer!
Careful there, you sound a bit like a nazi.
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How do I actually read more? Like how do force myself to read a book. I have some cool books I'd like to read but it's hard to choose it over say a video game. I also have ADHD.
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There's having 30 books, and 10.000 books. There's probably a sweet spot somewhere in the middle. No one needs 10.000 books.
That reminds me of the section in Black Swan where Taleb talks about Umberto Eco's library:
"The writer Umberto Eco belongs to that small class of scholars who are encyclopedic, insightful, and nondull. He is the owner of a large personal library (containing thirty thousand books), and separates visitors into two categories: those who react with “Wow! Signore professore dottore Eco, what a library you have! How many of these books have you read?” and the others — a very small minority — who get the point that a private library is not an ego-boosting appendage but a research tool. Read books are far less valuable than unread ones. The library should contain as much of what you do not know as your financial means, mortgage rates, and the currently tight real-estate market allows you to put there. You will accumulate more knowledge and more books as you grow older, and the growing number of unread books on the shelves will look at you menacingly. Indeed, the more you know, the larger the rows of unread books. Let us call this collection of unread books an antilibrary."
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How do I actually read more? Like how do force myself to read a book. I have some cool books I'd like to read but it's hard to choose it over say a video game. I also have ADHD.
Best way is to time box it, especially if you're not accustomed to reading for long periods of time. You could start by carving out just 30 minutes of focused reading before you let yourself get into gaming sessions, which will give you a sense of when you start to feel fatigued (you may end up wanting to read longer). For me, making it a mission helps me focus better at least
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Less than 30? That woman is goofy.
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I don't know who that is, but that might actually check out. I have a bookshelf full of books that i looved as a teenager
i just keep them for the memories of enjoying them:P -
Some people read a hundred books in their lifetime and keep 30. The 10k books on those shelves only represent a small part of what I have read in my lifetime.
"As a teenager."
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Bang ! BOOM! CRASH!!
Dog jumps out of bed and runs into the other room
Me: sorry doggo I was trying to get a drink of water, get back in bed
Doggo: why you do all that noises you fool
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That means I would have to go to the library to borrow books I want to read and then really read them and turn them back in. I just want to buy books to sit on the shelf as I tell myself I will read them someday in the future.
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My apartment is 60% books. I don’t have enough bookshelves, I have most loaded to the point where they are bending and there are piles of books stacked on top. Stacks and stacks and stacks.
I think my library is almost an art project at this point. I thrift a lot, check out library discard sales and have a bunch of things I bought when you could get books on Amazon for a penny + shipping. I often pick up 5-10 a week, because at the thrift shop that’s maybe $10 at most. (Goodwill is getting precious, but the really ratty ones are often prime spots.)
Very little fiction. Mostly textbooks and history and language and arcane computer things and strange religious literature and philosophy and paranormal arcana. Obscure things - I mostly collect things that I wouldn’t normally be able to find in a library.
My ex hated my books and wanted to work out a deal where I’d have to give up two for every one I took in. Now I am free to live in a pile of stacks. I don’t care if it looks “messy” or “cluttered.” It represents my mind.
A buddy called me to fix some plumbing in a house he baught , he said the previous owners were hoarders. So I went over and the whole fucking basement was wall to wall book shelves with fucking isles!
He said the lady that owned the house was some eccentric type that hung out in NY back in the 50's around artists and writers, traveling the world etc. her husband was some sort of critic and they liked books.
I asked what he was doing with it all and he said he sold the contents of the house sight unseen to some guy that wanted it all and was going to be arriving any minute but if I wanted anything to take it now. My brain was scrambling, I didn't want to be a dick so I just grabbed two books; Tropic of Cancer and Future Shock ( and a bunch of lab equipment that was in a secretive back room lol). They were both first edition books and had newspaper clippings about Miller and Toffler among other reviews that were stuffed in the pages.
It was crazy because they had so much bad ass shit , old leather bound stuff etc. It was just too much to process and I hope it didn't all wind up in a dumpster. I wish I could have spent a few days pillaging those shelves.
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That means I would have to go to the library to borrow books I want to read and then really read them and turn them back in. I just want to buy books to sit on the shelf as I tell myself I will read them someday in the future.
Or... what if you do both...
