Thursday, May 17, 2007

On failing to shrink my library

Well, most of my Amazon sales have closed. In the end, I made $628.62 $771.62 by selling 36 140 books. That figure doesn't include the amount I spent on postage, which probably brings things down to around $550 $680.

More to the point, though, during the book sale I actually picked up 24 books from the free books table in my building, most of which were abandoned there by Anne, who studies Chinese history, and John the paleoanthropologist. Thus basically I've been exchanging books on continental philosophy and physics for books on China and human evolution. My books now better match my current interests, but I can't really say I've simplified. I suppose I could just return books to the free table, and undoubtedly I will do this a little, but there is no way I'm parting with this.*

How hard is it for me to get rid of books? I can't even return library books. I have had this this incredibly obscure book out of the SLU library. Every time I try to return it, I start browsing through it, and think "Hey this is neat! I'm sure I'll get around to reading it." Well, given that I am now leaving SLU, and have to return my library books, you would think I would be able to just give up such hopes. Well, sure I can do that for a difficult book like Buddhist formal logic, a work that brings together the most technical parts of two very desperate fields, which I will in no way be able to read before I leave. But you know, I might want to read some of Food in Chinese Culture: Anthropological and Historical Perspectives or maybe Buddhism under Maobefore I leave for China, or maybe between the China and Hawaii trip. Maybe! It could happen!



___
* I have now learned to properly link to books in Amazon so I get a cut if someone buys the book. I doubt that will happen for any book I talk about in a post like this, but if at a later date I do full fledged book reviews, it might net me a few pennies.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

"two very desperate" you probably mean two very disparate--unless Buddhism and formal logic are in more dire straights then I thought!

Anonymous said...

Anonymous, you probably mean "dire straits" -- unless Buddhism and formal logic are in more calamitous heterosexuals than I thought!