The reason I own physical books and keep them on display in a bookshelf has a simple Proustian answer.

The reason I own physical books and keep them on display in a bookshelf has a simple Proustian answer. Each book is a souvenir with the power to flood my mind with memories of my past. Scanning my eyes across my shelf is akin to death since it causes my life to flash before my eyes. Beholding a book brings me back to the time in my life when I was reading that book. Without my books I may forget my past and special memories, but because I keep them and display them, the history of my life is ever-present on my bookshelf. This is why I could never get rid of any of my books. To lose them would be to lose a part of my soul forever.

I truly feel sorry for ereader users. I don't think it's possible for you to share this experience. The tactile interaction just isn't there to imprint memories with each book you read since there is no physical totem.

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  1. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    What a homosexual

  2. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    I have no problem with physical books, but I keep their number under 300 and even that is too much. I relegated all non-fiction and genre fiction and all contemporary books whatsoever to digital and I'm not coming back. Owning a bluray film or music or a video game on physical media is unheard in my house.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      makes more sense to have physical movies or video games than books due to resale value
      unless you plan on keeping everything you have forever i guess

  3. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    I just have lots of books around in my apartment to impress my unreachable intellect to mates.
    However no woman has stepped foot in here for more than 5 years

  4. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    Does Gravity’s Rainbow remind you of being pegged?

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      No it reminds me of when I was a university student and I had lots of free time sit in the wingback chairs of a university reading /study room and just read for hours on end. It also reminds of when a teacher asked me what that book was about and I just said "WW2 and V2 rockets. Gravity's Rainbow is a term used to describe the parabola of a V2 rocket." It also reminds of the joys and fascination I had reading this book curled up in the wingback chair. Byron the lightbulb is a favorite, as well as Slothrop becoming a mythic legend on the front. I seem to remember Slothrop partying with Eisenhower.

  5. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    I own books because I like to read them

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      If that were the case then you would just go to the library or get an ereader. There's something more at work for why you own books.

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        i don't like reading on screens
        i do it sometimes, but i like to sit down with paper

        • 1 year ago
          Anonymous

          You didn't address why you don't just go to the library. Like I said, there's more at work for why you own books.

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            I mostly own physical books because I've always wanted a personal library of sorts like my grandparents had, but I also think there's some value in encoding art into a physical object to distinguish it from "content" online. Especially if you plan on having kids, I think being able to point at a real, physical thing and say that it's a singular work is valuable in a world where most kids' media spheres are dominated by cynical, shitty algorithmic garbage on youtube or whatever.

            Not him, but if you think libraries are equivalent in quality everywhere, you're moronic. Plus, it's infinitely more convenient to just own a copy of something yourself to look at whenever.

  6. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    I like to read them and i like to let people borrow them after i read it
    Thats why i own physical books

  7. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    I download lots of books and buy physical copies of the ones I really like or if I want to support the author. I think this is the best way so that my bookshelf doesn't get filled with a bunch of mediocre or bad books that I need to get rid of later.

  8. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    Good thing you clearly have never read Proust, homosexual.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      Perhaps you're forgetting the passage in Time Regained where he describes something like tripping and how it brings back a flood of memories, and how the narrator experienced a trifecta of events in a relatively quick succession that brought back a flood of memories? It seems to me that looking at books which trigger rich memories is indeed very Proustian.

      Good day wikipedia skimmer!

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        >Good day wikipedia skimmer
        That’s you, you illiterate ESL mongrel. Your understanding of involuntary memory is elementary.

        • 1 year ago
          Anonymous

          Oh, you think I can't read French?

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            >Robbe-Grillet
            Every single image you have posted confirms you have absolutely dogshit taste in books.

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            Imagine getting triggered because someone reads more books than you, and because they find it enjoyable to take a walk down memory lane by looking at their books. Must be a sad life. A sad life indeed.

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            >read more books than you
            >a walk down memory lane
            Holy shit you are moronic. Sad.

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            Surely if you keep posting, you'll be able to tell your grandchildren one day that "you won".

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            Upvoted, good sir, for your veritable bon mot! Conversely, sire, the 35 books you own truly captures the essence of the Proustian love of knowledge! And I do say so myself, my witty gentleman, you besmirched the reputation of fellow you were conversing with! What a trip down memory lane.

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            How bitter do you have to be, that when you get bested you go on incoherent ad hominems to pretend like you won? Face it dude. You tried to call me out for having never read Proust and I proved you wrong. Get over it. Maybe next time don't be such a homosexual.

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            >You tried to call me out for having never read Proust and I proved you wrong
            HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAY

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            >IQfy poster
            Everything makes sense now.

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            >t.

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            Prove him wrong.

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            He's ugly lmao
            Ugly = dysgenic = worthless opinions

        • 1 year ago
          Anonymous

          Oh, you think I can't read French?

          I also think you meant to call me a monolingual american instead of an ESL. It really seems you're the one who is ESL.

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            No, you’re an illiterate ESL, you genuine moron. Confirmed by the fact that you cannot comprehend a simple sentence.
            Also,
            >Perec

  9. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    What a shitty thread?

  10. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    >browses https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_Search_of_Lost_Time
    >in fact, I actually read it because I provided a non-committal, ambiguous statement concerning involuntary memory and stated volume 7 without any pagination
    >ergo, I had to read it and thus bested you like the intelligent redditor I am
    M8, in the fugitive alone memory is quoted more than once per page in the first 270 pages. You trying to repackage your misremembrance of the madeleine moment is pitiful and shows you did not even read ir

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      >You trying to repackage your misremembrance of the madeleine moment is pitiful and shows you did not even read ir
      Maybe you should try reading volume 7?

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        I have read ISOLT three times. Give me the pagination cause I can just find some shitty page in volume 6 where Proust is reflecting on the past as involuntary memory like morons like you are wont to do

        • 1 year ago
          Anonymous

          Perhaps you should reread it again. It's the bit in volume 7 where he describes tripping over the curb in a certain fashion.

          Good luck homosexual.

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            Hahaha of course you use that as an example. moron, that was purely voluntary recollection

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            >moves goalposts after he gets proved wrong, AGAIN
            Keep the ad hominems coming dude. I'm sure your grandkids will love to hear this epic tale of your supreme intelligence.

  11. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    Why dilute your memories of books, which have been designed to please or instruct us, with those of your life, which is subject to every vicissitude, often unhappy, and always unimpressive? Do you think your own personal experiences more valuable than the works of the finest poets, the most penetrating historians, the most sagacious philosophers? I am reminded of the maxim of Schopenhauer on the intellectual horizons of the masses:
    >They take an objective interest in nothing whatever. Their attention, not to speak of their mind, is engaged by nothing that does not bear some relation, or at least some possible relation, to their own person: otherwise their interest is not aroused.
    Then contemplate the reader of e-books and PDFs: a work to him is nothing but its content: his impression is just, pure, unmixed with gall or honey: free from womanish vanity and self-love, he alone is a sage, a supremely rational being, a God. The low drudge who is enforced to read physical books sees but a reflection of his faults with each page opened: he is like a man standing in a hall of mirrors, beholding nothing but his own visage multiplied. Can we even claim that such a creature reads books? He but admires himself in them, and remains as vain and stupid as before. To avoid such misfortunes in the future, I would like to propose a general rule: IF YOU READ A WORK AS A PHYSICAL BOOK, YOU DID NOT REALLY READ IT.

  12. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    I used to have books laying all overthr place until my wife convinced me to get a bookshelf lol. Now I keep my favorites on the shelf and give away others to keep room on the bookshelf for new books.

  13. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    CONSOOOMMMM OOOAAAAA IM CONSOOOOOOMING OH FRICK OH FRICK AAAHAHHHHHHHAAAAAAAAAAAA IM CONSOOOOOOMING THE MEMORIESSSS EACH CONSOOMABLE IS A SOOOUVENIR OF WHEN I CONSOOOOMED THAT CONSOOOMABLE, WHAT A DELECTABLY CONSOOMABLE CONSORTIUM OF CONSOOMABLES OH YES THE CONSOOMPTION WILL BE A PART OF MY SOUL FOREVER

  14. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    Have you ever thought about writing a book-- you would dedicated each chapter for a different book and write about the memories you have of this particular book?

    Personally, if you were to publish it i would read it happily.

  15. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    based. Used to be a hardcore "ereaders are superior" advocate but, as you mentioned, without the physical queues to reinforce and remind the memories quickly fade.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      >physical queues
      meant cues. I'm moronic

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      This is the highest effort ereader bait thread I've seen here. Describes his intimate experiences to evoke eye-watering emotions, the takes it all away in the last paragraph. I kneel.

      They aren't superior - better in one way, worse in another. I have been reading on a laptop for a long time, and finally bought a Paperwhite a year ago.
      Being a 3rd world europoor, buying lots of books isn't viable. I'd have to spend a month's salary on books I read per year, most of which would have to be bought online as ebooks.

      Would like to have a small stack at home, but afraid I'm not going to re-read them ever and they'd be reduced to being mere trophies for display.

      As far as "muh paper feel" goes, I borrow books from a library to diversify the experience and not use an ereader exclusively.

  16. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    I have physical books because I dont have to answer to a Amazon overlord, I can sell and borrow them easily and because I enjoy the feel of real books over a screen
    Also because adding notes is a lot better than adding stuff to a pdf

  17. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    I own physical books because I like them. Yes, I read them too

  18. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    Good thing you clearly have never read Proust, homosexual.

  19. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    I agree with You OP although I'd rather use my ereader to consoom books. I will purchase/own only these books that I truly enjoy and I want them to be a part of that "shelf" history. I refuse to own books that are medicore - waste of money and space. I enjoy both - using my eink (because it's comfy) and owning physical copies of the books I love.
    Hoarding dozens of books is just a mental illness.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      I want to hoard books because I hate electricity and want the industrial system to die.

  20. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    You can do that with literally any trophy though. I have anime and MLP figures and posters and children's sports trophies and old school textbooks and knicknacks from previous jobs I've worked.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      Your IQfy posting privileges have been revoked.
      Duration: 4 millennia
      Reason: Cringe

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