Is there any point to collecting books?

[Ray McCarthy]

An obvious example would be the Book of Kells. It's a book, but almost nobody reads that actual text. It's all about the volume itself being a work of art, not just in the illustrations, but also in the binding, cover, handwriting, etc. That's an extreme example, but where does the line between art and book lie?

The Book of Kells was from the era of bespoke copies. I think you can actually buy a copy? But anyone interested in reading the source text might read the NIV, The New Jerusalem Bible, etc, or learn old Greek and old Hebrew to read the available "best texts", though you need Aramaic for the Book of Daniel. The NT isn't traditional "Classical Greek" but a common dialect spoken by non-Greeks in the 1st Century.

The actual book of Kells is more a work of art than a book.

Introduction of mass market printing, and re-printing is where the line is.

I'm only interested in buying & collecting books to actually read them ... But ...
All my books are for reading, bar one set. I have a box set bought in 1966 that is so disintegrating that I bought a new set to re-read. I keep the original out of nostalgia. I'm not sure if I personally had bought books before that, or just picked them. I bought the set with money I'd saved. It's of no intrinsic value as it's not any kind of first edition, two volumes had been lent and lost and then replaced. They are disintegrating from being re-read, carried half way round the world in baggage, read by my older kids etc. My one nostalgic book indulgence.

 

[Extollager]

All my books are for reading, bar one set. I have a box set bought in 1966 that is so disintegrating that I bought a new set to re-read. I keep the original out of nostalgia. I'm not sure if I personally had bought books before that, or just picked them. I bought the set with money I'd saved. It's of no intrinsic value as it's not any kind of first edition, two volumes had been lent and lost and then replaced. They are disintegrating from being re-read, carried half way round the world in baggage, read by my older kids etc. My one nostalgic book indulgence.

LOTR?

 

[Ray McCarthy]

LOTR?

Had it as a single volume paper back in 1967 or 1968 (can't remember where that went), then maybe three vol HB in 1980s, left abroad and replaced with single paperback in 1990s. It might have been the first release of the box set of The Complete Chronicles of Narnia, the only new thing might have been the box. Certainly the volumes are identical to 1965 ones? I think bought in Jo's Donegal Square Easons if they were at same premises then. Our teacher read us the the entirety of Prince Caspian in the 1965 summer term, a bit at the end of class each day. I've no idea who she was. I think it's the only thing she ever said that I took any notice of. It was so different to Biggles, Famous Five or the Greek, Norse, Irish Legends and Grimm / Anderson Fairy tales books at home.

All the other books I had as kid are either at my sister's or my mum's house, due to fact possession is 9/10ths. I should have packed and padlocked them when I went to college! They claim those are their books. Virtually all the books I collected 1973 to 1990 had to be left abroad. Most of my books are now thus obtained no earlier than 1990, though some date from 19th C.

Advice:
If going abroad for a job: Put everything in storage, until you are a citizen, job is really secure / got a 2nd one, etc etc. A company may pay for everything to be shipped. If they go bust or you leave then you can't get all the stuff back to your previous home. We had to give away almost everything. About 2,000 books, records, VHS tapes, HiFi etc, paintings, ornaments. We had sold or given away all furniture and appliances etc before going abroad. We really should have put everything into storage until more sure. But wishful thinking isn't a good part of planning.

 

[hitmouse]

I'm sure if some entrepreneur bottled that "second hand book smell" they'd make a bleedin' fortune...

I like the smell of cheapo paperbacks I bought in the 1980s. I also inherited a lot of books from my grandfather (an incorrigable book hoarder) when he died about 20 years ago. When I crack his books open I canstill get the scent of his pipe tobacco. I like that too.

 

[dask]

When the day finally comes where I'm in the rest home with room only for a bed, moveable tray and a plastic bowl to spit my tooth paste into, I'll check into ebooks. Until then it's paper all the way.

 

[Extollager]

If it's OK to go off on a tangent, I'd like to ask if anyone knows anyone under the age of 35 who is interested in coin collecting (not that I am looking to buy, sell, or trade coins). When I was a youngster 45 years ago, coin collecting was an unexceptionable hobby. My best friend could go to Eugene, Oregon, as I recall, or perhaps it was Salem, and visit a store that was, I think, devoted or mostly focused on coins. It wasn't surprising that a kid would be interested in coins or that a town of those sizes could support a coin business. Can it be that this is still true? I would think that coin collecting -- like stamp collecting, and maybe the store also traded in stamps -- would be associated with an interest in history and geography that is not nurtured any more in most American schools unless I'm mistaken. I think the Boy Scouts used to encourage coin or stamp collecting -- was that true? Is it still true?

So I wonder if collections that once would seemed "the stuff of dreams" would now possess little attraction to today's youngsters or even people in their twenties or early thirties. Am I right?

 

[dask]

Some Chrons people may want to factor in their own mortality. For the past few years I have tried (intermittently) to remember that for someone in late middle age the accumulation of an enormous backlog doesn't necessarily make sense, and have slowed my book buying

I've slowed down too, fairly drastically, but don't plan on getting rid of too much other than peripherals I truly doubt I'll ever get around to. The accumulation may not seem to make much sense for those scratching at the gates to their golden years but I doubt the thrill of variety, the excitement of discovering something forgotten tucked away in a corner not explored for a long time, the joy of reading a book on the spur of the moment because you unexpectedly want to, will ever fade at least for me.

 

[anivid]

I’ve drastically sold out and given to university & public libraries several times – cannot have all that backlog weighing me down
Anyway, the best have become part of me.

Though I still carry a library for those of my serious interests – I for fiction has adopted the attitude of buying second hand through amazon (0,01€ + postage) – and after reading trusting it to the bin.
Fiction books being too many now to even be thinking about reading twice.

Remember when we had to cut the pages of the book open ??
There was some wrong ways, as starting from the beginning and criticless continue to the very end – resulting in a very slanted book spine – or as many ‘cannot wait to start the book’–types did, started from the beginning and just cutted further when needing to read the pages

When having learned the right way, which was starting in the middle and first cutting to the very end, whereupon the book was turned around and the process repeated from the middle to the fore – the result was a beautiful spine either to hold in the hand or to show the world when standing in one’s library.
Those were the days

I actually cannot understand why those texts presented in an electronic form is called a book, when it’s merely an electronic text – or why socalled re-prints of elder and outdated books made by a measly automaton/IT-program are called books, as they so obviously are of a much lower order, many without proper chapter divisions, colophon etc. – all the meta which constitutes a book.

We need a narrowing down & protection of the book definition !!

Well, but with a real book, one can leaf through the entire book, forewards and backwards – for getting an overall view, one can read the end before the beginning, go back if it later shows one has missed some essentials about an episode or character, and a lot of other things - which I totally lack on my Text Reader, the Kindle 4.

 

[beccabear67]

I have many ebooks/magazines but I just don't enjoy everything on a screen the same. If I had a low light tablet/kindle perhaps my experience on that would change. So I spend a lot on paper, always have. I'm more likely to have and pay for music/audio as a digital file although even there I will sometimes burn to disc if partly to have a back-up hardcopy.

I've downloaded a number of SF/F fanzines (mostly not readily available as physical copies) and have to really push myself to read them, whereas a paper version I will have read cover to cover pretty quickly (and enjoyably).

It's possible the collecting urge is fading from our species, which may be a good thing... I think younger comic book readers are into the trade paperback collections versus the thinner more frequent comics, and many will buy e-comics (or whatever they are calling them). I've never paid for an e-comic and don't think I ever would. I do see people collecting these daft Funko Pop plastic figures all kept in their boxes... those seem a complete waste of space to me... they don't even 'do' anything (functionless) or usually even have anything movable on them. I suppose Pokemon and Magic cards were/are collected by younger people? If there are 'rare' ones that seems to really fuel the frenzy, but of course for things new the 'rare' part is almost completely calculated.

 

[Rodders]

Most of my reading is done on Kindle, but every now and again, i'll have the good fortune to read a book that i enjoyed so much that i'll want to get a hardback copy. The most recent of these has been Adrian Tchaikovsky's Dogs of War, i think. There are some writers that i'll instantly buy, such as Dan Abnett's Gaunt's Ghosts series and Neal Asher's Polity books.

I still collect the Star Wars books, but i've very disenfranchised by Disney's Star Wars and I want to back track that to Original Trilogy stories only.

My favourite author is Iain M. Banks and i'd like to go back and get his SF works in first edition and perhaps signed copies too. I recently got the Folio Society edition of The Player of Games.

 

[Elckerlyc]

Is there any point to collecting books? Nope.
Is there anybody - family, friend or acquaintance - who is even remotely interested in the books I read, both fiction and non-fiction? Nope.
Do I collect books? No. Well, sort of. I just can't bring myself to bin or sell them. They contain memories of visited (imaginary) worlds to which I may wish to return sometime in the future. They are, partly, the experiences, the acquired knowledge that build the person I am today. Building blocks. You don't discard those. It is me.
It also covers bare walls nicely, a decoration you can explore and lose yourself in.

At some point I switched from paper to e-books. They were cheaper and much, much easier to obtain*. I got myself a Kindle and started building a library on my device i could carry with me where ever I went. But I noticed that some books I read urged me to get the paper version to add to my not-a-collection collection. So I did, more often once Amazon established a branch in the Netherlands and acquiring English paper books became a lot easier. I visit used book fairs to search for books that I read long time ago from the library and still linger in the recesses of my mind. I notice a trend in me of returning to paper books. They are more visible, tangible, more concrete than electronic one and zeros than can disappear or get corrupted without you noticing and be lost.

I suppose, when I pass away, my surviving next of kin will just bin the books, together with all I wrote over the years and close my website. It costs money, after all. If they have any sense they should sell the books to a used books trader. And then I truly will be gone.
Except for what I wrote on SFF Chronicles.


* Preferring English books, I used to purchase books from Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk, which often kept me weeks in anticipation (sometimes concluding with import duties to pay) before delivery. Unpacking the box though was a delight.

 

[beccabear67]

I joined the Folio Society back when they were releasing some really beautiful editions of fairy/folk tale books and so I have a shelf of those including the six volume A Thousand And One Nights. The only non-fairy/folk title gotten was Diary Of A Nobody. Aside from a very few similar volumes not by Folio that's the extent of my 'serious' or 'fine' collecting. I used to read about Arkham House and Greg etc. editions of great works of Horror or Fantasy, but short of directly crossing paths with a Ship Of Ishtar illustrated by Finlay I wrote off the likelihood of starting anything that way (settled for a pdf version of that book).