Man, this makes me feel all warm and fuzzy. I just love books, have a large collection of my own (though obviously not on the scale of the article) and am always on the lookout for offbeat books (old/new/whatever) on any subjects that i find interesting. With Internet Archives/Project Gutenberg/etc. you can of course have your ebook versions but there is nothing like having a hard copy in hand.

The right book at the right time can often be transformative opening up your mind to new ideas/possibilities and leading to better knowledge and wisdom.

For example; reading Bergen Evans' The Natural History of Nonsense (https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.77094) from 1946, one of the earliest books on skepticism w.r.t. people's irrational beliefs/thinking/behaviour teaches you the importance of critical thinking for yourself which is arguably even more important today. A good review from Goodreads here - https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2099042654

Another good collection are the excellent science/mathematics books from the erstwhile USSR many of which are now available at https://mirtitles.org/ A subset of those titles are available in hard copy form from low cost publishers on Amazon India. Checkout for example B.N.Ivanov's Fundamentals of Physics (https://mirtitles.org/2018/04/21/fundamentals-of-physics-iva...) and Roman Podolny's Something Called Nothing: Physical Vacuum: What Is It? (https://mirtitles.org/2013/11/24/something-called-nothing-po...) both of which are interesting takes on aspects of Physics.

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petercooper 6 days ago | parent [-]

The right book at the right time can often be transformative opening up your mind to new ideas/possibilities and leading to better knowledge and wisdom.

I agree. I'm a bit of a used book shop dweller and collector of oddities myself and I'm often struck with this sort of inspired feeling after reading the most random old thing that might otherwise have ended up being recycled. There's so much human experience packed into old books that simply isn't available online at all. Kudos to anyone who makes a serious effort to collect and archive even a slither of it (not me - anything I have will end up in the trash when I die).

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rramadass 5 days ago | parent | next [-]

People have forgotten that it was the invention of the printing press which made books widely available to the masses, which then became the main catalyst for the Scientific Revolution (by diffusing the knowledge/discoveries/inventions of an individual/small group across the entire population) leading to the advanced Technology based society we live in today.

We have become so complacent that anti-intellectualism has become the norm in popular culture and people see no benefit in learning "knowledge for knowledge's sake". The irony is that in today's world there are myriad avenues for knowledge acquisition and far more easily and cheaply than ever before. Because there is so much to learn the minimum that people should focus on is to get exposed to different types of knowledge i.e. breadth over depth. And both Non-Fiction and Fiction are needed here, the former to deal with Reality and the latter for modulating The Human Condition all with the aim of a well-rounded life.

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ghaff 6 days ago | parent | prev [-]

There used to be a great used book store in Harvard Square but I suspect they sort of overextended (opened second location) at the wrong time though don't really know the story. There's another basically hybrid store--used books are in the basement--but I have to admit I haven't been in there for a while.

That area used to be a cornucopia of book stores generally but that's mostly gone.

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petercooper 6 days ago | parent [-]

I think they're a little more common where I live in the UK, at least. I actually thought the original post was going to be about https://www.the-bookshop.com/ in Scotland where I've visited a few times, but they have 100,000 books versus this guy's 150k :)

I don't know if the US has the concept of "book towns" but there's quite a few over Europe where you'll have used book stores very close to each other and some sort of annual book festival. Wigtown in Scotland is absolutely tiny (under a thousand people and far from any major towns) but has several, as does Hay-on-Wye in Wales. It becomes a bit of a tourist thing.

	▲	ghaff 6 days ago \| parent [-]
		I don't think so. As I said, Harvard Square used to have a pretty high density of book and music stores. Not really so much any longer and I've never seen the equivalent elsewhere. Of course, Manhattan has a lot but, given the population density, I'm not sure I'd call it a book town.