< the merits of a bookshelf

~ew

Hey ~tetris, a bookshelf is "something" for sure! Not so much now, but in the past I have scanned the bookshelf of other people and found intriguing stuff indeed. My bookshelf has become somewhat of a burden now, so I freely give stuff away.

That being said, a long time ago (before 1997) I had the opportunity to hold an original edition of Newtons "Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica" (1687 says wikipedia) in my hands. That was a magic moment. I could even read some (my Latin is now dead), and grasp what the text was about. The other book was an introduction to geometry (by someone else), going like "A point is a nothing, a line is made up from adjacent points of nothingness ..." or something such. In Latin. And it was still readable after a few hundred years. The half dozen or so books we looked at in the university library were all in excellent shape. Really magic. So I think, printed books are sort of sacred. Maybe not each and every book, but in principle ...

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~tetris wrote:

Was this at the British Library by any chance? I've seen the reading rooms where you have to book to see such protected books, and you can really feel the magic emanating from the cover of those tomes.

I also like the idea that humour hasn't changed very much over the centuries or millenia