A Wealth of Knowledge

As you may suspect, living in a college town has its tradeoffs, but one perk I am enjoying is free access to a wealth of knowledge at not one but two world class university libraries in the form of Washington and Lee University (W&L) and Virginia Military Institute (VMI). And at the VMI library the other day I serendipitously came across a collection of what has come to be called The Harvard Classics (partially pictured above).

Originally marketed as “Dr. Eliot’s Five-Foot Shelf of Books,” the collection is a 50-volume series of classic works of world literature, important speeches, and historical documents compiled and edited by Harvard University President Charles Eliot and published in 1910. Eliot believed that following the reading plans for the series included in Volume 50 would offer a reader, in as little as 15 minutes a day, the condensed benefits of a liberal education.

In his introduction to the series, Eliot made it clear that the Harvard Classics were intended not as a mere compilation of the “world’s best books,” but as a portable university. While the volumes are numbered in no particular order, he suggested that they could be approached as a set of six courses: “The History of Civilization,” “Religion and Philosophy,” “Education,” “Science,” “Politics,” and “Criticism of Literature and the Fine Arts.” 

And speaking of university libraries, former Harvard professor Lewis Hyde wrote in his “Created Commons” essay: “In Thoreau’s case, the most important feature of the accumulated wealth that was Harvard College turned out to be its library, only fifty thousand volumes in the late 1830s but nonetheless the best in the nation. Years later, just before his death, Thoreau told a young man about to enter Harvard that its collection of books was the finest gift the institution had to offer.”

As followers of our minimalist journey know, I have whittled my once sizable library from more than 1,500 volumes to only about 50 or so titles today, covering about five feet of shelf space, as it turns out, with another 50 or so electronic copies of books occupying only digital space. But in addition to the two college libraries I have joined two local counties’ library systems, giving me free access to another dozen library branches, so life is good for this book lover. And I encourage you to avail yourself of whatever library resources you have at your disposal!

Comforts, Luxuries, and Tools

One of my favorite things about our move here is our proximity to not one but two renowned universities. In addition to joining the local municipal library, as a city resident I also have access to the expansive research library at Washington and Lee University (pictured above). Suffice it to say that for a book lover and writer like me it is a dream come true. Just the other day I availed myself of the extensive collection of books by and about Henry David Thoreau.

Among the dozens of titles available I came upon one in which Thoreau distinguishes between comforts, luxuries, and tools, hence the title of this post. Besides what he called the “necessaries” of food, clothing, shelter, and fuel, Thoreau also had three other categories of material resources, namely, “comforts,” which serve to make our lives more pleasurable; “luxuries,” which are often superfluous and even harmful; and “tools,” which serve to further our self-development and help us achieve our life goals.

As Thoreau suggested, “Most of the luxuries, and many of the so-called comforts of life, are not only not indispensable but positive hindrances to the elevation of mankind” (emphasis mine). And even our tools can come between us and our development, according to Thoreau. “Men have become the tools of their tools,” Thoreau stressed. “The best works of art are the expression of man’s struggle to free himself from this condition.”

For a gadget guy like myself, I am learning that one way to curtail the continual cycle of updates and upgrades is to try and limit my exposure to the marketing messages meant to entice me toward the “new and improved.” Having just invested after several years in a new laptop and smartphones, necessary tools for me and mine, I endeavor to tune out other offers for electronic toys like tablets and watches, which are superfluous to our needs.

And after a flirtation with electronic readers, I have returned to my first love of print books, which I much favor reading and highlighting the old fashioned way. I still download the occasional e-book but browsing a traditional bookstore for serendipitous selections or perusing the shelves of a university library still supply the type of satisfactory sensation that technology tools fall short of fulfilling. In my book, analog trumps digital as the ultimate luxury.

Reading Is Rewarding

It may come as no surprise to you all, but one of my very favorite activities in life is reading. And this year has been an especially rewarding one, as I read a personal record 64 books. For inquiring minds, a couple dozen were library books and the rest I got from our local free library kiosks or purchased for a couple bucks apiece from used bookstores. Ironically, the only books that cost in double figures were a couple e-books from Amazon. 

As longtime readers of this blog likely recall, our minimalist journey began several years ago with radically downsizing our library of more than 1,500 books down to our favorite 150 or so, which we gradually whittled down to only 15 at one point. As of year’s end, our library is back up to 60 titles, about evenly split between hardcovers and softcovers. We also own about 40 e-books that are not counted toward our total, and for the record I much prefer print!

Pictured above is the Wiscasset [Maine] public library, which dates to 1799 and is the oldest continuous circulation library in the nation according to its website. And joining it has given us access to the state’s reciprocal lending program between participating libraries, which we enjoy utilizing. If there was one thing I particularly missed last year it was the temporary closing of libraries here due to the pandemic. 

With winter descending upon us here in Maine and the sun setting as early as four o’clock, reading helps us to weather the elements. As Kathleen Norris wrote, “Just the knowledge that a good book is waiting one at the end of a long day makes that day happier.” And to that end, I have stockpiled about a dozen books I am very much looking forward to reading as the season progresses. Here is hoping you and yours have a happy new year of rewarding reading also! 

The Minimalist Library

The question I get asked more than any other about our minimalist journey has to do with books. As an editor who reads and writes for a living our home had welcomed a bounty of books, to the point that I had amassed a collection of a couple thousand volumes, at least a third of which I got as gifts from authors, publicists, and other professional colleagues.

So when I mention that I got rid of all but a few, even folks who are not necessarily “book people” are incredulous, with many suggesting that they could never part with their own prized volumes. And I then share that our adoption of the mantra “minimize to mobilize” is what gave us the framework with which to whittle our collection.

As my wife and I started to dream of a more mobile lifestyle, it dawned on me that I had not read at least half of my books, and I likely wouldn’t re-read the half I had read. So I edited my library accordingly in order to live more lightly, even including several signed first editions in the downsizing. And it helped that I created digital files of notes from my favorite titles to remind me of valuable information I had read.

A helpful acronym here is BOOK, or Box Of Organized Knowledge, and with the advent of the Amazon Kindle we started buying e-books to aid in our transition to a more mobile lifestyle. With that said, I must admit that we have only downloaded a couple dozen titles from Amazon, and I typically read them using the Kindle app on one of our Apple i-devices.

Within about a year I got rid of all but my favorite hundred or so volumes, giving the others intentionally to friends and family and donating the remainder to our local library. As of today, my library stands at a grand total of about thirty titles, all of which I have read, if not re-read. As Sir Francis Bacon said: “Some books should be tasted, some devoured, but only a few should be chewed and digested thoroughly.”

The point I am trying to make with this post is that books are containers of content and while some volumes naturally lend themselves to collection most can be read for their insights and then shared with others. It is the material they possess that adds value to our lives, not necessarily their physical property. Here is my advice: read them, reap the rewards, and then recycle them.

The Amazon Kindle

Before flying to visit family for the holidays my wife and I got an Amazon Kindle e-book reader and we’ve since thought about getting another one. We own the Wi-Fi-only edition but the 3G edition’s expanded capability is tempting, especially when the other one of us is using ours. It is not exaggerating to say that the Kindle has changed our lives, or at least our reading lives.

For starters, it has motivated us to limit ourselves to e-book purchases only. Since getting the Kindle, we’ve downloaded about a dozen sample chapters from books we considered buying and have bought four of them, largely based on our ability to sample them first. And the cost savings has been amazing. For softcover books whose retail prices each average about $15, we only spent about half that.

Another big benefit of the Kindle has been the ability to order books whenever the mood strikes us [within distance of a hotspot], including at Starbucks, our office, the bedroom, and yes, even the bathroom! It is awesome to be able to download a full-length book in less than a minute and start reading it immediately, no matter where you are.

And with our move to digital reading, we are maintaining the mobile lifestyle by donating hundreds of little-used books left over from my days as a book review editor. With fewer books comes less need for bookshelves, so we sold most of them, downsizing from a total of 30 to 13. Even before getting the Kindle we cut back on traditional book buying, but if you’ll pardon the pun, it is “fuel for the fire.”

The Case for Editors

With an intriguing twist of irony, I ordered a book the other day from Amazon titled The Case for Books: Past, Present, and Future by Robert Darnton, who happens to be the director of the Harvard University Library. So what is so ironic about that? Other than the fact that the book is a hardcover that I got for a third off the cover price from the place that has popularized electronic book reading, there was a glaring TYPO on the back cover proving my point that besides the case for books, there also is a case for editors.

The Changing Bookscape

I blogged about what I call the changing bookscape about a year ago in a couple of postings titled “Print is Dead” and “More Print is Dead,” based on observations from a book with the title of Print is Dead by author Jeff Gomez. I won’t repeat the conversation here but its thoughts are echoed in a compelling article in the Wall Street Journal by writer Steven Johnson titled “How the E-book Will Change the Way We Read and Write.” It is must reading for publishing professionals and can be read in its entirety by visiting www.online.wsj.com.