There are worse crimes than burning books. One of them is not reading them.
― Joseph Brodsky
Reading books is one of the best things you can do for self development. But here I want to talk about why we prefer to acquire books in different ways.
At first, whenever I wanted to read a book, I would buy the hardcover version if available. It was just a nice artifact to have, and you simply feel like you are getting your money’s worth. At the same time I was finding myself mostly reading these books in digital format on an ebook reader. This is especially true when traveling. For more casual reading of articles I opted for either my phone or in the case of work related texts, my laptop. Thus on average the printed book got the least reading time, while taking up the most space on the shelves, and being the least portable option.
I started to think why I bought books other then just wanting to own and flaunt them on shelves. What are the consequences and are there alternatives? Firstly they do not offer any practical advantage over the ebook reader. Not to mention the very large books which are extremely unpractical to handle like GEB, Companion to Mathematics, and Omnibus Classics (see photo bellow) to name a few. Second, some of the books I would partially read in digital form anyway before deciding to buy the print version. Finally if your main goal of purchase is to support the author, which it should be, then buying the book in digital format makes more sense. It reduces the overhead of book printing, publication, and delivery.
While environmental impact of printed books vs ebook readers is debatable, it is clear that if you already have an ebook reader, you should use it to it’s full potential. If not, then another alternative for printed books is to gift them! In any case, hording a lot of books that you don’t read anymore, or did not even like that much, makes little sense. Having a large collection is also very unpractical, because it makes relocating harder and more costly.
But how do you flaunt the fact that you read all these cool books without displaying them on the shelves? Easy! Make an account on goodreads. It is a great website which helps you track what you read so far and even share your opinion on books with others. I find it a great resource of insightful comments on many books. Reviews by others can also help you in finding your next book to read.
So there you go. Now you can happily donate all but the most sentimental books you own. Free up your shelves, live and read more efficiently.