One of the things that stood out to me when I visited Chartwell House, Winston Churchill’s home, was the number of books he owned. There were thousands upon thousands sitting in luxurious built-in bookshelves, and over 173 books on Napoleon alone.
My father-in-law recently shared a concept with me about how it’s important to have unread books in your library. That although you may not read them now, or need them now, they sit there because you may need them in the future.
I’ve been thinking about this as I sometimes look at the unread books on my shelf and feel a bit guilty. So I decided to do a bit more digging on the matter.
I then came across the concept of the antilibrary, from Nassim Nicholas Taleb. He says, “Read books are far less valuable than unread ones. The library should contain as much of what you do not know as your financial means, mortgage rates, and the currently tight real-estate market allow you to put there. You will accumulate more knowledge and more books as you grow older, and the growing number of unread books on the shelves will look at you menacingly. Indeed, the more you know, the larger the rows of unread books. Let us call this collection of unread books an antilibrary.”
I now look at my unread books with a little more perspective.