How many books do you own?

[belamyi]

^ Thanks for your vain effort anyway

 

[belamyi]

Maybe you could have that tattooed on your back as a kind of gyaravatara with Oprah, per HoodedRat's suggestion, included?

Sorry, but neither me, nor my Sanskrit dictionary know that much about... whatever you are talking about

 

[theworldwithout]

Physical copies between 350-400.

Ebooks just over a thousand.

 

[zoltanspawn]

Sorry, but neither me, nor my Sanskrit dictionary know that much about... whatever you are talking about

Oh, I thought you spoke everything. Your image is of the dasavatara of Vishnu. Das = ten, so the ten avatars of vishnu, very well known image. Gyara is eleven in Hindi, so I smashed it up into the Sanskrit to add Oprah as the eleventh. (I should have cleanly said ekadasavatara I think, but I don't actually know any real Sanskrit, and ought not to conflate Hindi and Sanskrit, though obviously it is their relation that brought something back into it.)

Alternatively, you could just have "Heidegger Sucks" tattooed across your forehead.

 

[Latimer]

I once had a client for whom I was designing a library in his new house, and when I asked him how many books he and his wife had he answered, "None, but we'll get some."

 

[belamyi]

Oh, I thought you spoke everything. Your image is of the dasavatara of Vishnu.Oh, I thought you spoke everything. Your image is of the dasavatara of Vishnu. Das = ten, so the ten avatars of vishnu, very well known image.

Yeah, that's is why I posted it

Gyara is eleven in Hindi, so I smashed it up into the Sanskrit to add Oprah as the eleventh. (I should have cleanly said ekadasavatara I think, but I don't actually know any real Sanskrit, and ought not to conflate Hindi and Sanskrit, though obviously it is their relation that brought something back into it.)

I am too stupid, especially at 2:00 AM, to consider putting together Hindi and Sanskrit terms

Alternatively, you could just have "Heidegger Sucks" tattooed across your forehead.

Honouring him with the exclusivity, great...

 

[HoodedRat]

I once had a client for whom I was designing a library in his new house, and when I asked him how many books he and his wife had he answered, "None, but we'll get some."

I've always found it deeply sad when people use books merely for decoration. A book isn't really a book until someone starts reading it and accessing the information contained within it.

When I see pictures of 'celebrities' homes with rows of books artfully arranged on shelves, or a full-on library, I always find myself thinking, 'I wonder how many of those you have actually read?'. Some bookshops used to sell old books by the metre just for filling up bookscases for decorative purposes; I expect they still do.

 

[belamyi]

I've always found it deeply sad when people use books merely for decoration.

I find it way sadder when people consider cookbooks or Dan Brown's pee as "books" only because of the way they are presented and marketed.
People who "never read books" are not that different from those who munch self-improvement or "how-to-books", or just any volume listed on the "NYT Book Club".

 

[belamyi]

I've always found it deeply sad when people use books merely for decoration. A book isn't really a book until someone starts reading it and accessing the information contained within it.

I'd say the book is what is understood and assimilated, which is different, if you want, from the "fully exhausted" about which some people usually talk, especially in reference to the works considered "classics".
You are saying that sampling is what makes a dish, not savouring and digesting it.
In any case, as long as there is one single person able to do all that, namely, the "cook" of the book...

 

[belamyi]

When I see pictures of 'celebrities' homes with rows of books artfully arranged on shelves, or a full-on library, I always find myself thinking, 'I wonder how many of those you have actually read?'.

What I always wonder about any row of books, in whatever sort of library, is what books are those.

Some bookshops used to sell old books by the metre just for filling up bookscases for decorative purposes; I expect they still do.

They do. I bought the complete letters of Racine as a "decoration volume".

 

[Latimer]

I've always found it deeply sad when people use books merely for decoration. A book isn't really a book until someone starts reading it and accessing the information contained within it.

When I see pictures of 'celebrities' homes with rows of books artfully arranged on shelves, or a full-on library, I always find myself thinking, 'I wonder how many of those you have actually read?'. Some bookshops used to sell old books by the metre just for filling up bookscases for decorative purposes; I expect they still do.

True, books are available by the meter--or as I would put it, by the yard--and in a variety styles, these are just a few of the sources:

https://decorbooks.co.uk/

https://www.booksbythefoot.com/?gclid=EAIaIQobChMI9M6F0-T41wIVlDaBCh0EXwoiEAAYASAAEgKOC_D_BwE

I enjoy visiting houses and taking in what books the residents own, and attempting to understand their lives and interests based on what they collect and display. I am also happy to be in rooms where I know the books are simply for display, but which are part of a visually coherent whole.

You need, however, to be careful what the "books by the yard" consist of:

I occasionally attend parties at the Beverly Hills mansion of a former wife of a very rich, famous man--the house was part of the divorce settlement. She is a beautiful former call-girl, replaced by another beautiful call-girl whom her husband met during a 3-way with them both. (This brings to mind James Goldsmith's famous pronouncement that when you marry your mistress you create an opening for the next one.) The first time I was at her house I wandered into the library, and eyeing the books on the shelves, discovered matched sets of volumes such as 30 years of bound journals of various scientific organizations, medical textbooks, etc. Stupid choices all of them. She is a smart, clever woman, a higher sort of trophy, and in another age she would be thought a courtesan rather than a call-girl, so I was surprised to see such a ridiculous-looking collection of books. As I later discovered, they came with the house, and had been brought there as part of the "staging" to help sell the it. On my last visit I discovered that they'd been replaced with a proper set of classics that look as if they've been read, or will be read: Petrarch, Dante, Boccaccio, Shakespeare, etc.

 

[Harke the Boeotarch]

I've always found it deeply sad when people use books merely for decoration. A book isn't really a book until someone starts reading it and accessing the information contained within it.

When I see pictures of 'celebrities' homes with rows of books artfully arranged on shelves, or a full-on library, I always find myself thinking, 'I wonder how many of those you have actually read?'. Some bookshops used to sell old books by the metre just for filling up bookscases for decorative purposes; I expect they still do.

They used to use encyclopedias for this purpose here. Very interesting if you are held in such a house and are bored.

 

[Latimer]

There's a story I've heard that Michael Korda, the former head of the publishing house of Simon and Schuster, tells about his uncle, Alexander Korda, the movie producer, when Korda first came to California in the late 1930s or early 40s, and moved into a house in Bel Air with his wife, the actress Merle Oberon. The story goes that Louis B. Mayer of MGM or some other major studio honcho came over to Korda's house, and was asked to wait for Korda in the library, which--typical of movie industry houses of the time (and even today--I've done a few)--was used more for watching movies than reading books. (The Renoir or Monet at the end of the room would slide up to the ceiling and a movie screen would be revealed; today the screen comes down from the ceiling, and rests in front of the Hirst or the Kapoor.) Mayer--or so Korda recounts--was surprised to see that all of the books were real, rather than some of them simply spines, and that they actually looked to be part of a personal rather than generic collection, and that they'd actually been read. Mayer supposedly never trusted Korda after that, or so Korda thought.

 

[belamyi]

There's a story I've heard that Michael Korda, the former head of the publishing house of Simon and Schuster, tells about his uncle, Alexander Korda, the movie producer, when Korda first came to California in the late 1930s or early 40s, and moved into a house in Bel Air with his wife, the actress Merle Oberon. The story goes that Louis B. Mayer of MGM or some other major studio honcho came over to Korda's house, and was asked to wait for Korda in the library, which--typical of movie industry houses of the time (and even today--I've done a few)--was used more for watching movies than reading books. (The Renoir or Monet at the end of the room would slide up to the ceiling and a movie screen would be revealed; today the screen comes down from the ceiling, and rests in front of the Hirst or the Kapoor.) Mayer--or so Korda recounts--was surprised to see that all of the books were real, rather than some of them simply spines, and that they actually looked to be part of a personal rather than generic collection, and that they'd actually been read. Mayer never trusted Korda after that. True or not, it's a good story. Or as the Romans say, "Se non è vero, è ben trovato" --not true, but well-founded.

^ Are you sure that was not rather Mr. Gatsby's library in the Beacon Towers at West Egg?

 

[belamyi]

(...) Very interesting if you are held in such a house and are bored.

"Very intriguing": your life must be so full of excitement.

 

[Harke the Boeotarch]

Started young and quickly lost count.

As with men.

 

[belamyi]

I enjoy visiting houses and taking in what books the residents own, and attempting to understand their lives and interests based on what they collect and display. I am also happy to be in rooms where I know the books are simply for display, but which are part of a visually coherent whole.

Like one thing would be incompatible with the other...

 

[belamyi]

What I always wonder about any row of books, in whatever sort of library, is what books are those.

They do. I bought the complete letters of Racine as a "decoration volume".

Wait..: "I acquired a volume of the complete letters of Racine which was being sold as a 'decoration volume'".


That's better.

 

[belamyi]

Started young and quickly lost count.

As with men.

Ah!, I remember when I could still dress a list, from memory, of all the hos I had hired... youth!!

 

[belamyi]

(...)

I occasionally attend parties at the Beverly Hills mansion of a former wife of a very rich, famous man--the house was part of the divorce settlement. She is a beautiful former call-girl, replaced by another beautiful call-girl whom her husband met during a 3-way with them both. (This brings to mind James Goldsmith's famous pronouncement that when you marry your mistress you create an opening for the next one.) The first time I was at her house I wandered into the library, and eyeing the books on the shelves, discovered matched sets of volumes such as 30 years of bound journals of various scientific organizations, medical textbooks, etc. Stupid choices all of them. She is a smart, clever woman, a higher sort of trophy, and in another age she would be thought a courtesan rather than a call-girl, so I was surprised to see such a ridiculous-looking collection of books. As I later discovered, they came with the house, and had been brought there as part of the "staging" to help sell the it. On my last visit I discovered that they'd been replaced with a proper set of classics that look as if they've been read, or will be read: Petrarch, Dante, Boccaccio, Shakespeare, etc.

1.- That read like you were typing to us from 1930s Hollywood.

2.- "Ridiculous-looking" is ultimately a matter of taste, habit and fashion, with libraries like with ANYTHING else, but I wonder what exactly is a "stupid choice" in bound journals of scientific organizations and medical textbooks:

-first, because, for most people, Dante or Shakespeare come to them as thick and "boring" as technical literature (people talk of "Dante's Inferno", not of "Dante's [Divina] Commedia" for some reason, and that without ever having read, let alone studied it, nor ever intending to do it: and that would be, at any rate, in Dante's original English; and then, Shakespeare's English is as unintelligible to them as my broken English to anyone);

-second, because it is pretty lame to "present" such "proper", typical "set of classics", like they had gone to the market with Bloom's Western Canon in order to meet the approval of the Mr. Latimers ...

- and, finally, if you need to fill up a bad ass Beverly Hills mansion library with quality literature, you may find that the likes of Mr. Cecil or Mr. Merck are a far better choice that those insufferably mediocre decadent Anglo scribblers that fatten "Western Canons".