I seem to learn a bunch about my aesthetics of books by wandering a used book store for hours.
Some books I want in hardcover but not softcover. Some books I want in softcover but not hardcover. Most books I want to be small.
I prefer older books to newer books, but I am particular about translations. Older books written in english (and not translated) are gems.
I have a small preference for books that are familiar to me, a nontrivial part of them were because they were excerpts taught in english class.
I don’t really know what exactly constitutes a classic, but I think I prefer them. Lists of “Great Classics” like Mortimer Adler’s are things I’ve referenced in the past.
I enjoy going through multi-volume series (like the Harvard Classics) but I think I prefer my library to be assembled piecemeal.
That being said, I really like the Penguin Classics. Maybe they’re familiar, or maybe their taste matches my own.
I like having a little lending library near my house so I can elegantly give away books that I like and think are great, but I don’t want in my library anymore.
Very few books I want as references, and I still haven’t figured out what references I do want. (So far a small number: Constitution, Bible)
I think a lot about “Ability to Think” (a whole separate topic) and it seems like great works are the products of great ‘ability to think’.
Also it seems like authors of great works know or can recognize other great works.
This suggests that figuring out who’s taste I think is great, and seeing what books they recommend or enjoy.
I wish there was a different global project of accumulating knowledge than books. I think books works well for poetry and literature, but it works less well for science and mechanics.
Wikipedia is similar to this, but is more like an encyclopedia, and I’m looking for something that includes more participatory knowledge.
Maybe what I’m looking for is a more universal system of cross-referencing and indexing content. The internet as a whole would be a good contender here, but is too haphazard.
I’d like things like “how to build a telescope at home” and “analytic geometry” to be well represented, but also in the participatory knowledge sort of way.
(This is the way in which much of human knowledge is apprenticeship-based and transferred, and merely knowing the parts of a telescope—what you’d learn from an encyclopedia—is insufficient to be able to make one)
I expect to keep thinking on this, but for now I have more books!
Book Aesthetics
I seem to learn a bunch about my aesthetics of books by wandering a used book store for hours.
Some books I want in hardcover but not softcover. Some books I want in softcover but not hardcover. Most books I want to be small.
I prefer older books to newer books, but I am particular about translations. Older books written in english (and not translated) are gems.
I have a small preference for books that are familiar to me, a nontrivial part of them were because they were excerpts taught in english class.
I don’t really know what exactly constitutes a classic, but I think I prefer them. Lists of “Great Classics” like Mortimer Adler’s are things I’ve referenced in the past.
I enjoy going through multi-volume series (like the Harvard Classics) but I think I prefer my library to be assembled piecemeal.
That being said, I really like the Penguin Classics. Maybe they’re familiar, or maybe their taste matches my own.
I like having a little lending library near my house so I can elegantly give away books that I like and think are great, but I don’t want in my library anymore.
Very few books I want as references, and I still haven’t figured out what references I do want. (So far a small number: Constitution, Bible)
I think a lot about “Ability to Think” (a whole separate topic) and it seems like great works are the products of great ‘ability to think’.
Also it seems like authors of great works know or can recognize other great works.
This suggests that figuring out who’s taste I think is great, and seeing what books they recommend or enjoy.
I wish there was a different global project of accumulating knowledge than books. I think books works well for poetry and literature, but it works less well for science and mechanics.
Wikipedia is similar to this, but is more like an encyclopedia, and I’m looking for something that includes more participatory knowledge.
Maybe what I’m looking for is a more universal system of cross-referencing and indexing content. The internet as a whole would be a good contender here, but is too haphazard.
I’d like things like “how to build a telescope at home” and “analytic geometry” to be well represented, but also in the participatory knowledge sort of way.
(This is the way in which much of human knowledge is apprenticeship-based and transferred, and merely knowing the parts of a telescope—what you’d learn from an encyclopedia—is insufficient to be able to make one)
I expect to keep thinking on this, but for now I have more books!