Thursday Three For All
How To Keep A Library Of (Physical) Books. I love me some books (especially the ones that deal with grammar). Ryan Holiday schools us on how to organize an incredibly large library.
I’ll be real clear about the benefits of owning physical books: You own them. They are there, physically, in your house. You cannot forget about them. A different app is not one click away. You can see patterns. You can gauge your progress. You can show off your efforts (and you should–reading is something to be proud of). You can look for what you need, find it on the shelf and satisfyingly say “Ah, here it is” and find the exact passage you marked for this purpose.
The secret of the five top. (via Seth Godin) There are some great nuggets in here for churches. Newcomers’ events, anyone?
In my experience–I’m sharing a hugely valuable secret here–you score a big win when you put five people at tables for four instead. Five people, that magical prime number, pushes everyone to talk to everyone. The close proximity makes it more difficult to find a place for the bread basket, but far, far easier for people to actually do what they came to do, which is connect with one another.
Father and Four Year Old Daughter Sing “Tonight You Belong To Me”. (HT Tastefully Offensive) This is quirky, sweet, and hilarious all at once. Makes me want to learn how to play a little pink guitar.
I hate to be a grump, but I disagree with the book guy. I think people take too much pride in their book collections –“You can show off your efforts (and you should–reading is something to be proud of)”.
Instead, I read a book, and then I pass it along (to a friend or to BetterWorldBooks.com). Someone else should be able to benefit from the book, instead of me hoarding it on my shelf like some prized possession.
Of course, I do keep some non-fiction books for reference, and I’m not a writer like this guy, so maybe he has a lot more reference books than I do, but I don’t keep every book I read.
And it seems that this guy makes his living writing books, so it benefits him to read a lot in order to be a better writer. But not everyone is like that, and I can’t afford to buy books and hoard them like he does. (Sorry, I just read the post he linked to where he criticized checking out books from the library and it made me even angrier at him).
Signed,
Lauren the Grump (but I’m not always a grump!)
Wow. What a grump. 🙂
If you really want to get grumpy, check out this link to the world’s best privately-held libraries: http://bookriot.com/2013/09/30/libraries-rich-famous/