Why I will not be doing the "unread books" meme

[nolly]

The cut'n'pasted text describes unread books as "they sit on the shelf to make you look smart or well-rounded." I use LibraryThing, where the list originates. I have many books tagged unread, including some from that list. Not one of them is on the shelf to make me look smart or well-rounded. I have never bought a book I did not intend to read. Occasionally, I change my mind about a book before I read it, but I generally don't keep those around. My shelves tell you something about who I am and how I think, and what they say is not a lie. The unread books, in fact, are segregated from the read books, and are in my bedroom for easy access, since I do most of my reading in bed at night.

Comments

[brooksmoses]

The entertaining thing is that, while I can't read any Russian [1], I am familiar enough with the Fortran standard that I could recognize it almost immediately, and find my way around the inside of it.

[1] This is not entirely true. I can now recognize "Fortran" in Russian. :)

[nolly.livejournal.com]

I've forgotten the vast majority of the vocabulary I once knew, but I remember the pronunciations well enough to read cognates and a few other words. I would expect a technical standard to contain many cognates.