Lateral Drift

I wish first to put the quote from the Black Swan, by Nassim Taleb, which has been so influential to me:

“The writer Umberto Eco belongs to that small class of scholars who are encyclopedic, insightful, and nondull. He is the owner of a large personal library (containing thirty thousand books), and separates visitors into two categories: those who react with ‘Wow! Signore professore dottore Eco, what a library you have! How many of these books have you read?’ and others – a very small minority- who get the point that a private library is not an ego boosting appendage but a research tool. Read books are far less valuable than unread ones. The library should contain as much of what you do not know as your financial means, mortgage rates, and the currently tight real estate market allow you to put there. You will accumulate more knowledge and more books as you grow older, and the growing number of unread books on the shelves will look at you menacingly. Indeed, the more you know, the larger the rows of unread books. Let us call the collection of unread books an antilibrary.”

I have to say that this passage has made a profound impact on my life and has inspired me to begin collecting books, some of which are beyond my current ability to read.  Amazon.com, eat your heart out.  Of course, I do have the good fortune of having a amazing library system in my city that provides an endless supply of books, but it is the ability to spontaneously pick up a book and dive in that warrants having a collection of your own as well.  Personal favorites of mine, which I intend to add more of, are books written in foreign languages.  For example, I have  been eyeing up books published in original Russian or Arabic for some time.  Having these novels on my bookshelf will give me extra determination to study these languages, and incentives are extremely important for bolstering continual motivation.

Here are a couple books that I have purchased over the last couple months to add to my antilibrary.  What have you added to yours lately?

-The Iliad of Homer

-Paradise Lost

-Nietzsche Compendium