I keep 4 shelves of technical books on my bookshelf behind my home office desk. Some are "old," from the 70s. Many were thrifted. And then I have, I don't know, about 300+ pounds of (mostly) technical books in storage boxes in the garage.
For technical stuff I prefer to have both physical and digital copies of some books. For non-technical, I tend to go fully digital (except reference material, like my D&D books). I like going analog to read technical stuff, I'm not exactly sure why.
Anyway, I believe that reading is a super power that's helped me throughout my life. I try very hard to impress this on others, especially people that I mentor. I've actually been accused of "only knowing" this or that because I "read a lot." Well, no shit, and if others bothered themselves with it they'd learn cool shit, too!
>> I've actually been accused of "only knowing" this or that because I "read a lot." Well, no shit, and if others bothered themselves with it they'd learn cool shit, too!
Once I had a manager challenging on making things up regarding a rather thick white paper he forwarded me, because there is no way I could have read it that fast. Once he saw I commented the whole thing beginning to end in Word, well, his face was priceless. Side effect was me looking for a new job a couple of months later.
Totally agree on reading as kind of a super power. Reading in the sense of reading and understanding, do so rather quickly, and be able to condense the relevant parts out of whatever text you. And remember the rest well enough to be able to look it up when needed. Same goes for handbooks, people, read your damn handbooks!
It's funny so, that for RPG stuff I went all digital with the exception of the existing pre-PDF era collection I have. And for technical stuff I am like you, preferably paper. For English literature India is a really good source to get those books at affordable prices through Amazon. Pretty sure those sellers are not supposed, or even allowed, to sell internationally, but they do. Worst case print quality is somewhat sub-par, from what I saw with some of my colleagues, or the cover is somewhat generic (in case of the majority of my library). The editions are the same so, content wise.
> I've actually been accused of "only knowing" this or that because I "read a lot." Well, no shit, and if others bothered themselves with it they'd learn cool shit, too!
So much this. I can't get smarter, I was born with the brain I was born with, but I can easily fill up time reading and remembering all kinds of crap someone else won't put the time for.
For technical stuff I prefer to have both physical and digital copies of some books. For non-technical, I tend to go fully digital (except reference material, like my D&D books). I like going analog to read technical stuff, I'm not exactly sure why.
Anyway, I believe that reading is a super power that's helped me throughout my life. I try very hard to impress this on others, especially people that I mentor. I've actually been accused of "only knowing" this or that because I "read a lot." Well, no shit, and if others bothered themselves with it they'd learn cool shit, too!