Casual Conversation

I believe unread books have a long tradition. I remember some novel we had to read in school, talking about unread books. I believe that was The Great Gatsby (from 1925), where the new-rich people bought books as a status symbol and put them on their shelves. But they never read them and you could tell by how the pages hadn't been separated. (Which was a thing to do back then.)

I believe they're still some sort of a status symbol a century later, albeit a different one. I recently bought a book on Kotlin programming, because I'd really like to be able to program Android apps... But I didn't read it (yet), so currently it's just sitting there, collecting dust. But somehow the act of buying it and having it there, did something for me... It's not a status symbol that I brag with to other people at all. But unless I muster up the time and actually read it, I still can't code Android apps.

In that sense, I think there are various reasons why we collect books. And we're all a bit "new-rich", because information and text is available in abundance in the digital age. And you (and everyone) can easily afford to host a BookStack instance... But is it about the content? Is it useful? Or a status symbol to show off to other people? Or a plaything to tinker with, or like with me and the Kotlin book more wishful thinking than anything else? ... Kind of depends on what you do with it.

Bookstack is cool!