> > There is definitely a sense of reward in simply buying a book - even one you never read
> Is there?
W-w-what? Of course there is reward in simply buy a book. Or, perhaps, one could say there is reward in the possessing of the book, and maybe not the purchasing. Or maybe that's a distinction with no distinction. In any case, it's certainly true that one can get reward from buying books without the necessity of reading them.
> Doesn't that just make you feel like an idiot for wasting your money?
Sorry, I'm not seeing where any "wasting" enters into it. If I buy a book I want, the reward is having it. There is no waste. I got what I wanted. What you're saying only makes sense if you make the rather odd assumption that the value of a book is exclusively in the reading of the book...
I mean... do you, or have you ever, collected anything simply for the sake of having that something? Stamps? Vinyl records? Magazines? Bicycles? Video game consoles? Something?? I mean, it's quite a common activity. I would think most anybody would be able to relate to this.
I have bought books that I thought I wanted to read, but then left on the shelf without reading for almost 20 years.
Then when I did read them, they greatly affected me, and were as worthwhile as I had originally hoped.
I could've died without ever reading them, but I still bought them to read at some undefined future date.
If I wanted to have books on a shelf for visual decoration, I believe that there are fake books available. But I have enough real ones.
Getting a signed first edition or something for the collector value seems reasonable to me, but I don't know why I would want it if I hadn't read some version of it.
> I mean... do you, or have you ever, collected anything simply for the sake of having that something? Stamps? Vinyl records? Magazines? Bicycles? Video game consoles? Something??
I do. But only digitally nowadays. I hardly own any physical goods. Maybe $10-$15k taken together at most. I realize this puts me close to an extreme end.
As a kid I used to 'play' trading card games - but I hardly played them and mostly just spent a large portion of my meager allowance on buying painted cardboard. With the benefit of hindsight I could've spend that money on things that would have brought me considerably more joy, but I consider that a valuable lesson in itself.
I don't begrudge people their collections. There's still purpose in that. However buying something for your collection is different from buying for the sake of buying.
> Is there?
W-w-what? Of course there is reward in simply buy a book. Or, perhaps, one could say there is reward in the possessing of the book, and maybe not the purchasing. Or maybe that's a distinction with no distinction. In any case, it's certainly true that one can get reward from buying books without the necessity of reading them.
> Doesn't that just make you feel like an idiot for wasting your money?
Sorry, I'm not seeing where any "wasting" enters into it. If I buy a book I want, the reward is having it. There is no waste. I got what I wanted. What you're saying only makes sense if you make the rather odd assumption that the value of a book is exclusively in the reading of the book...
I mean... do you, or have you ever, collected anything simply for the sake of having that something? Stamps? Vinyl records? Magazines? Bicycles? Video game consoles? Something?? I mean, it's quite a common activity. I would think most anybody would be able to relate to this.