• Nithin Ravi

If you’re a reader and have a good number of books in your room, how many times has somebody walked into your room and asked

“Wow, you’ve got so many books. How many have you read?”

How do you feel when someone asks you a question like this?

Have you stopped yourself from buying books because of the 4-5 unread books lying in your desk or couch?

We’ve all been there. I’ve definitely been there, quite a lot of times.

I always feel the need to buy books despite having a pile of unread books on my shelf that I have named “The Wall of Shame” (like The Hall of Fame). I do feel the guilt teasing my heart and my brain quickly calculating how better I can spend the money that I am about to wash down the drain. Buying books despite knowing you’ve loads of unread books is a guilty pleasure for me.

What Unread Books Offer?

In Black Swan, a popular non-fiction, Nassim Taleb (the author) talks about Umberto Eco and his relationship with books which has stuck to my heart ever since I read it first.

Umberto Eco is a great Italian scholar, philosopher and most importantly a continuous researcher who explores a variety of topics. He’s known to have classified people into two types.

• The large majority who ask him - “Wow! Signore professore dottore Eco, what a library you have. How many of these books have you read?”
• The very few who actually understand that a private library is more of a research tool rather than a mere display to talk high about one’s intellect.

Nassim Taleb also coined the term “Anti-Library” for all the unread books and argues