Have You Wanted Books You Discarded?

[Renegade]

Has anyone thrown out books that they later wished that they had?

I threw out a MOUNTAIN of books when I moved across continents, and there are a few I wish I had. A couple ASP and Mono books. And a few other religious texts and miscellaneous, but mostly the programming/tech ones as they're more relevant here.

[cranioscopical]

When my wife and I merged two households into one I threw out (well, gave to various libraries etc.) > 6,000 books, many of which I planned on reading again during my retirement. Sometimes I regret that, especially if there's something that's now out of print. At other times I reflect on the avoidance of bookshelf construction that I achieved and the probability that >6k books would still be packed in boxes in our basement.

I'm too busy being retired to read them anyway: there's plenty of new stuff to get through. These days, when I buy a book I read it and then leave it in a public place in hopes that someone else will get something from it.

[40hz]

I've never thrown out any I later regretted disposing of. And that includes the one I tossed into a lit fireplace the minute I finished reading it.  

But I've loaned out dozens that never came back I now sorely miss.

My problem is that most of what I like to read tends to go out of print fairly quickly.  

[40hz]

These days, when I buy a book I read it and then leave it in a public place in hopes that someone else will get something from it.

-cranioscopical (June 26, 2011, 01:56 PM)

Lately I've been doing that, although not with every book I buy. (At lest not yet. )

There's actually some people who have taken the old summer vacation home practice of "leaving a book" to a higher level of organization and fun. You can register your book, attach a free serialized label, and then release it into the wild. The serialized label allows people to use the web to report its current location and track its wanderings for as long as subsequent finders play along.

And a surprising number do. Pretty cool viral concept. It's called BookCrossing.



I've been doing a bit of it lately. Except I prefer to hand draw a one-off original label with the same information on it. Mine are illustrated - and each one is completely unique. I think it makes it more personal doing it that way.

 

[iphigenie]

I left a mountain of books behind when I moved - each time - then promptly started gathering books again, just not the same.

I kept all the technical books but I must admit that I should have not bothered - they age. There's a few I would have kept anyway, because they are so good, but I have so many and I still have them, since I feel guilty to just throw them away (anyone wants java 2 books?)

I now tend to buy my technical books as ebooks, at least they dont use up space and I know I wont need more than 1% of them in 10 years....

I do miss many of the french books I left behind, but I was moving to england and what good are books you cannot share or lend with your local friends. So I kept only few books in french...

I have too many books I wont reread that I should give away, if someone wants to come dig

[wraith808]

Gaming books.  When my wife and I consolidated, I even had an extra month to move things.  Even with that I left a mountain of books in my condo- my landlord was nice enough to say that he would get rid of them.  I used to have as many gaming books as a shop - just one of each.  Now I only have half the shop...