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Art Garfunkel's Library

artgarfunkel.com

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Re: Art Garfunkel's Library

#61

Post by JasonFruit »

Loic wrote: post #9
janvdberg wrote: post #8

I love this! Everyone should keep a list like this (self-hosted). It also makes me a little bit sad, as there are SO MANY books and this shows that a lifetime of reading will only get you to maybe 2000 books. Choose wisely what you read.

Or stop reading if you feel it is not worth your time.

Absolutely do! I was reading John Calhoun's Disquisition on Government, which is not very long, but extremely dense, and full of those passages that sound at first as though they mean the opposite of the author's point, but work around to it by degrees. I struggled with it for a while before I realized that the wordiness was a disguise for poor or non-existent reasoning — at least, that's how it seemed to me — and went to read something better.

Re: Art Garfunkel's Library

#63

Post by JasonFruit »

kleiba wrote: post #29
coldtea wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> as there are SO MANY books and this shows that a lifetime of reading will only get you to maybe 2000 books. I get through about 15 books a month - 2000 would be like 10-12 years, not a lifetime.

I have three little kids, I get through about one page a week.

It gets better when they're a little older. I'm now back to a book per week or so, now that they're 9 and older, and I homeschool them.

Re: Art Garfunkel's Library

#64

Post by jyriand »

AlbertCory wrote: post #3

There are about an equal number of "I read that" and " Did I read that? Or just part of it?" If you go into a used bookstore (remember those?) you find very few copies of Swann's Way but plenty of copies of the other books in In Search of Lost Time . Apparently it's common to read the first one and never go any further. I can't claim to have even done that.

I read the first book and listened to the rest of them. It's a great series one you get into it.

Re: Art Garfunkel's Library

#66

Post by coldtea »

capableweb wrote: post #43
hmcamp wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Audiobooks my friend. Listening at +1.5x (playback speed) helps

Maybe its just me, but listening to audiobooks are absolutely impossible for me if I want to retain anything of the material I'm reading/listening to. First problem is that I seem to forget everything as soon as I stop listening, so next time I listen, I have no memory of what happened before. Second problem is that sometimes my brain just tunes it out, and I catch myself 5-10 minutes later not having to actually lis…

>Second problem is that sometimes my brain just tunes it out, and I catch myself 5-10 minutes later not having to actually listened to any of it, having to go back again.

I think the key here is to listen while doing something undistracting and boring -- so not like driving (which requires your attention often), but rather e.g. on the treadmill or commuting in some longer distance, where you can passively zone one (eg. long train commute, not 3 subway stops).

Re: Art Garfunkel's Library

#67

Post by mrweasel »

pmontra wrote: post #20
wyclif wrote: post #4

Art Garfunkel encases his library shelves in plastic?

Not the shelves but books, apparently not all of them. I saw collectors of comics doing it to preserve them and be able to resell them later at a higher price, never for books.

Some people are insanely overprotective of books. I see the point of a signed copy, first editions of some rare old books and things like that, but I've seen people go nuts about cheap paperbacks.

A friend of mine borrowed a copy of 1984 I had laying around. She accidentally folder one of the pages or something, I don't recall. I don't think I've ever heard anyone apologies so much, but she REALLY loves books. It was just paperback I picked up because it was dirt cheap... I ended up giving it to her, that way it was her own book she damaged ever so slightly.

Re: Art Garfunkel's Library

#68

Post by metafunctor »

peteforde wrote: post #51

Audiobooks, borrowed for free from my library and listened to via the excellent Libby app, have been a life-line over the past four years. I went from 3-4 books a year to 3-4 books a week, sometimes more. I listen in the bathroom, while exercising, cooking, cleaning, cycling, gardening. My listening speed is typically 1.75x for dense prose and hard science, all the way up to 2.5x for fiction and biographies. The secr…

Wow, that's a lot of books!

Assuming 10% of those books are, in some way, in your opinion, better than the other 90%, what would you say were the best couple of dozen books you've listened to? How much would you say the performer affects your perception of the book?

Re: Art Garfunkel's Library

#69

Post by jasode »

jyriand wrote: post #62

It's amazing how many times Chareles Darwin's book is mistitled: "The origin of species" The correct title is "On the origin of species".

>It's amazing how many times Chareles Darwin's book is mistitled: "The origin of species" The correct title is "On the origin of species".

Well, it seems understandable that the "On" disappeared from the title when people are referring to the book. See that the original 1859 edition de-emphasized the preposition "On" in the title with a small font: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Origin_of_Species#/medi...

The original publisher subsequently dropped "On" from the title in the 1872 6th edition: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Origin_of_Species#:~:te....

The shorter "The Origin of Species" has gained so much popular currency that even new editions of that book omit the "On" from the title:

https://www.amazon.com/Origin-Species-150th-Anniversary/dp/0...

https://www.amazon.com/Origin-Species-Voyage-Beagle/dp/14000...

Re: Art Garfunkel's Library

#70

Post by eddieroger »

subpixel wrote: post #58

I don’t care to find it but a journal entry from Art Garfunkel’s web site crossed my radar many years ago. I recall thinking “wow, this is some next-level narcissism here.” This list (and the royal we!) produce a similar reaction.

I don't doubt he is a narcissist, but I think it's much more likely that someone else is maintaining the site for him, and thus the royal "we," as opposed to him speaking in first person. If you go to the Contact page, it references his management agency - I would assume they maintain the site, and he just asked for his library to be posted. Still narcissism, just maybe slightly less.
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