Borrowed books exert the highest time-pressure, even if I am allocated 6 weeks.
Purchased books generate the heaviest stress in terms of “reading minutes vs $cost”. However, an even bigger stressor is the carry-cost when moving home. Each time I had to go through dozens deciding which titles to discard. Always painful and time-consuming.
Free books are stress-free. Free magazines often show quality content esp. in the case of a global publication brand.
having too many (hundreds) free books (excl magazines) and too little time … is much better than yesteryears when I bought 1/3 of the current titles and had 5 times more hours allocated to reading them.
Q: what books qualify to be retained beyond next relocation, up to 10Y?
A: I think the magazines are disqualified
k_X_power_descriptor … k_soul_search
The issue is complicated by 3 big factors
- AA: acquisition cost affecting LG
- MM: cumulative moving t$cost. Travel light
- TT: (jolt) limited spare time
- DD: due diligence when buying
Background: As my collection of free books grows, I may realized there are too many books at home than I could use meaningfully (TT). It proved to be a recurring problem when moving home(MM). Over the years, I have developed my preference for travel-light. The outdated tech books, cheap or free books (AA) are easier to “discard without guilt”, therefore weigh much /lighter/ as a baggage
I used to feel a book is to be kept for decades, even a $20 book, as if every book is a reference book I keep using year in year out. This (ownership…) creates huge emotional baggage when buying or moving home .. (Nowadays I try to buy without oth; discard without guilt.) For 99% of my books I bought it for a specific reason (including interest), read it for a few months and don’t read for a decade, not ever for reference. As a consequence, these books now feel like dead weight. (See the section on “hardcovers on option trading”.)
I used to spot a book in a used book shop, evaluate the likely value [likelihood of learning], for a few month, finally decide to buy it, but spend less than an hour reading it without learning much, and discard it when moving home.
— The Aha (TT) .. I would never have enough time to read every (non-tech) purchased book in depth. Workout, parenting, external dialogs, pff, blogg, tech learning … are all discretionary with higher priority than recreational reading. So I devised the 1H/$10_invested guidelines (10min/$1 for small buys), to help me decide when I have earned the right/license to LG a given book, well before the next relocation.
— LG [discard or give away] .. I now feel proactive LG is a best practice, learning from experience of adapting to the living environment.. natural_selection… healthy and rational.
The #1 blocker/restraint/zsms/baggage of LG is the initial price paid.
The #1 j4 LG is family relocation. No smoke without fire, and “No family relocation, no pressure to LG”
Q: Let’s proactively let go of unused books but what books to prioritize?
A: parenting books… esp. non-free, or pure-text, or yellowish, or English,
A: outdated tech books
A: old flame .. see “hardcover” case study
Q: what books are easier to “Let-Go without guilt”?
A: free books are easier to let go, and therefore weigh (much) lighter. In Sep 2021, I had 2 books on “office mini-stretches”. I decided to donate the one I bought from China, and keep the free book from BookExchange. This way, when I move home, I will have lighter emotional baggage. From this experience I concluded that when I have too many books on a subject, it’s best practice to LG bought books first.
A: books I have kept for years but not read for 10Y are easier.
— find shelf space for books
- how about kitchen cabinet?
- on top of wardrobe or book shelves
— book categories to let go vs keep
- discard parenting books
- discard contemporary (=>outdated) analysis of China, US etc
- discard outdated tech books
- keep magazines except current news
- keep general knowledge books such as math, econs, history, science
— case study: brand new hardcovers on options and FX
Unlike the paperbacks, these hardcovers are published for a much smaller community of financial professionals and cost much higher. Still, each book costs a fraction of the professional daily salary. Sounds like a throwaway amount at the time of my purchase. I bought these books mostly for IV, esp. dnlg IV. Compared to my 10 quant textbooks, the hardcovers are more practical, more /accessible/. I have successfully spent more than an hour per book, commensurate with price paid. However, since 2012 I have shifted direction elsewhere. It highlights a reality with book ownership is — our reading interests evolve with age.
Sugg: give away some titles that no longer appeal to me, perhaps after browsing through the TOC.
In contrast, the 5 quant textbooks I bought in China (in English) were bargain prices. Even though hours spent per book is very low, I feel less “baggage”. I also spent less time (oth) on due diligence before buying
— MM (moving home ).. is by far the biggest test and biggest decision time. Every time I moved home, I would pick some books to let-go. For many of my current books at home, there’s something appealing in print quality, in visual or in wording … but I don’t think I would reopen it in 10Y. Kinda emotional baggage. Transport $cost approaches acquisition cost esp. as your book collection grows, as we grow in wealth. Cumulative transport cost of a given book grows each time we move home
Note that if I only move _part_ of my collection, keeping the rest where they are, then the baggage is much lighter.
Jolt: Those individuals with a large book collection didn’t move home as often and don’t plan to move more than once in 30Y ! Some friends keep hundreds of books, some of which are seldom read. If I were them I won’t mind leaving such books in my bookshelf because there’s a chance I might read one for 10m. They were lucky to avoid facing the same reality I faced.
MM (and ezLG) is the #1 attraction of free books, and the reason I semiconsciously spend so much time collecting them.
Q3: what’s a reasonable life time budget for book transport? S$10k or USD 10k
A: jolt: transport budget can exceed acquisition budget. If a book cost $10, then cumulative transport cost (ignoring tcost) over a few moves can be $10 to $30.
Q3b: what’s the budget for one-time book move by car? $100 acceptable. In fact, books are lighter than piano or some furniture.
Q3c: what’s the budget for one-time book move by air? Very expensive.
A: USD 100 is about my budget but often insufficient 🙁
A: perhaps I should budget $300
Q: how is my barebones ffree relevant in the transport budget?
A: my barebones ffree is based on responsible spend, so I’m burdened by any transport cost.
A: jolt: anyone with 100+ books will not have enough t-budget (like 10Hr/book) so transport cost has to be accepted as fact of life.
The biggest paradox — am generous, mellow, experienced,, in my book buying habits, but not in the transport routine. Therefore, transport is now the #1 heaviest headache of book ownership, much heavier than the acquisition cost. So far, my proven pain relief of transport headache is LG, but I feel stupid about LG of some specific titles.
— Choice 1: free books .. I have found some good free books. They are guilt-free. If on a popular subject [like parenting, stress,,,] a good book costs $20 and a less-good book is free, I would favor the free one, because I could discard without guilt.
Free books are often unclean, even missing pages, and uncategorized, but to my surprise I found many relevant topics:
- history and illustrated knowledge books
- magazines
- parenting
- Taiwan or English self-help books
— Choice 2: Amazon tech books .. much, much “lighter” (in terms baggage and LG) than the new tech books I bought elsewhere.
Compared to non-tech, tech books are easier to discard without guilt, as they become outdated.
— Choice 3: used book shops .. In SG I used to visit used book shops in 百胜楼, but Strand has better organization and better tcost.
In terms of $cost, the Chinese books (even new books) in 百胜楼 are generally cheaper than used English books. However, nowadays I no longer look forward to those used bookshops.
As stated in the case study, the used books cost at least a few dollars and require DD. I often spent hours in a bookshop selecting books to buy, but after buying, I don’t spend 10x more hours reading them … zsms.
— Q: for my U.S migration, shall I bring all my books?
A: first trip is by myself. I could bring perhaps 25%. When I move entire family over, I would bring most and leave behind perhaps 30% in my HDB home or someone’s home. Within a few years I would need to visit Singapore.