Like the illusion of Wall Street, with its vast and powerful investment banks, now shuttered, China too is an illusion perpetuated by the Globalists that gave us the 15,000 mile Caesar salad, poisoned cat food and lead based paint on babies' pacifiers. Like the illusion that money would come from thin air to always push housing prices higher, China has spent a generation pursuing its illusion. Pursuing an unattainable dream to be like the West, while 6000 years of its carefully shepherded top soil blows into the sea.
Posted: Mon Aug 25, 2008 3:38 pm Post subject: Do You Have A Home Library?
I have to admit I am a collector of too many things, one of which is books. I started picking up how-to books years ago at garage sales, library sales, etc. I kind of challenged myself to try to find books that described how to do things that have mostly been taken out of the home in modern society. Candle making, soap making, raising chickens, herbal medicine: things like that. Now, after many years, I have amassed a pretty fair collection of such books. I guess my real question is, do many of you feel, as I now do, that this may be a valuable way to pass knowledge on to the upcoming generation(s)?
Joined: Oct 04, 2004 Posts: 5695 Location: Body in OK, Heart in TX
Posted: Mon Aug 25, 2008 4:21 pm Post subject: Re: Do You Have A Home Library?
I think it's likely to be of value in a wide variety of scenarios. We have a lot (~2000) books. Plus it's fun. I like reading books. I like the way they feel and smell. _________________ "Every junkie's like a setting sun..." - Neil Young
Posted: Mon Aug 25, 2008 5:19 pm Post subject: Re: Do You Have A Home Library?
Shannymara wrote:
I think it's likely to be of value in a wide variety of scenarios. We have a lot (~2000) books. Plus it's fun. I like reading books. I like the way they feel and smell.
Same here
and they are the best antidote to TV-induced misuse of brain.
Posted: Mon Aug 25, 2008 5:23 pm Post subject: Re: Do You Have A Home Library?
Books are one of the big things I collect for PO. Knowledge of how to do all these things we've forgotten about might be important. I need to be living it, but just can't at the moment. _________________ Everybody thinks they're righteous! Adam Baldwin "Jayne" Firefly/Serenity
Joined: Apr 28, 2005 Posts: 3908 Location: West shore Lake Eire, MI, USA
Posted: Mon Aug 25, 2008 6:06 pm Post subject: Re: Do You Have A Home Library?
Of COURSE I have a home library, both fact and fiction with lots and lots of books. What other form of entertainment requires nothing but sunlight and stands up to repeated use for decades? Also if the infrastructure really collapses as some seem to hope then what source of information will I be able to access, by paper books or data stored on my computer or the Internet? Seems like a real no brainer to me. _________________ Always appeal to a man's enlightened self interest, you can trust him to look out for himself honestly, It's when you appeal to his Honor or the Common Good that he stops paying attention.
Posted: Mon Aug 25, 2008 6:36 pm Post subject: Re: Do You Have A Home Library?
We rotate pulp fiction with the Goodwill stores. I'm taking a load in to donate tomorrow, and may buy a couple we haven't read.
But we keep literature classics, textbooks, and reference books, to the point that it is a storage problem. I have no idea how many, but they fill many feet of shelving. There are a lot of technical books; the standard references for each field, such as Handbook of Chemistry and Physics, Marks' Mechanical Engrg Handbook, Machinerys' Handbook, Merck Manual, Grays Anatomy, Physician's Desk Reference, Herbal Pharmacopeia's, cookbools, Ball Blue Books, and a host of mechanical and engineering related stuff. I have books on watch repair,casting bronze and aluminum, rewiring alternators, and doing lost wax casting. Too many to list.
I have a daughter and a son in law who will get the stuff to deal with when I'm gone, and they are interested. It's the best way I can think of to pass on what I expect to be useful technologies into an uncertain future. _________________ Local fix-it guy..
Joined: Jan 03, 2005 Posts: 1211 Location: western Wisconsin
Posted: Mon Aug 25, 2008 7:55 pm Post subject: Re: Do You Have A Home Library?
We have been accumulating books for decades--lots of reference books on any and all subjects of interest, plus fiction of many kinds, and books about things that I hope to someday have time to study. We started to put them into the computer last winter and then stopped doing an inventory in the house when spring arrived and we became busy outside. Up to a few over 5000 so far, with a set of shelves in one room and many boxes yet to go. Lots of fiction paperbacks in the boxes. And then there are all the auto and engine related manuals in the garage shelves (ran out of room in the house)--probably a hundred or so car, truck, motorcycle, and bicycle manuals, plus old Popular Mechanics and similar magazines, plus back issues of some magazines that I have felt worth keeping. Many years (maybe lifetimes) of reading at our place. And our sons have lots of books of their own still at our place, too.
Posted: Mon Aug 25, 2008 8:19 pm Post subject: Re: Do You Have A Home Library?
One of my past occupations transitioning me from my big city experience ie Toronto, was taking the job as librarian / computer tech for my own community. During that time I sorted literally 10s of 000's of books as we were a donation based library mostly. With that I developed an aversion for redundancy and repetition in books and the information they hold. Not that I don't have some duplication, obviously but I can usually skim the table of contents of a given book of a particular subject matter and get a feel if I want to poke around further.
I currently have a library that is partially in boxes and partially on the shelf of about 500 books. I don't own any fiction that I know of. Nothing against it but I'm one of those people that can't find the time or desire to get into a story. It might be AD something or other but I'm just not interested in anything but non-fiction.
Having been a working musician for years, I have quite a few guitar and other music books stashed away out in the little barn that might make for some excitement again in my life at some point.
Posted: Mon Aug 25, 2008 8:59 pm Post subject: Re: Do You Have A Home Library?
Knowledge is a precious thing. I have hundreds of books, not just on PO related topics. It is important to collect and preserve the classics of ancient civilization,such as Roman and Greek authors. But, I also collect books on such topics as biology, chemistry, math,languages, art, you name it.For less than a dollar, we can have access to the knowledge in books that have been unavailable to most of humanity for centuries. Imagine how the knowledge in that cast off botany text would have been treasured to the questioning minds of men and women thousands of years ago. We can build libraries that would have been the envy of ancient kings and learned folk. So, yes, a library is important to me, and hopefully plenty of others as well.
I esp. enjoy coffee table photography books that depict contemporary events. They're a good way to preserve what our world was like, pre-crash.
Joined: May 28, 2008 Posts: 38 Location: east of west north of south
Posted: Mon Aug 25, 2008 9:24 pm Post subject: Re: Do You Have A Home Library?
Yes and my prize is a set of encyclopedias dated 1898.
If you ever run across an old set,snag them they are filled with things that have been forgotten.
Joined: Apr 06, 2006 Posts: 3625 Location: 3 miles NW of Champoeg, Republic of Cascadia
Posted: Mon Aug 25, 2008 9:37 pm Post subject: Re: Do You Have A Home Library?
Also a bibliophile/archivist. I have a lot of rare collections of traditional music/song; also rare recordings which in the case of digital-only stuff I'm planning to transfer to cassette tape, which is extremely durable stuff, whereas CDs can wear out or start skipping when only mildly scratched. Seems utterly counter-intuitive to most in the 21st century though...
The self-sufficiency books have a lot of overlap. Seymour's is my favorite I think, but the Storey book of self-reliant living has a lot of nitty gritty details as well. _________________ Cogito, ergo non satis bibivi
C'mon man, who're you gonna believe?
Posted: Wed Aug 27, 2008 7:36 am Post subject: Re: Do You Have A Home Library?
I have found that the Storey books to be too general sometimes. They leave out important info and make it all seem too easy. I still buy them when I find them, however.
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