core interests

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randyt

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I was thinking about this earlier. I have core interests but my book shelf has many subjects. I was looking over my selections and have a bunch of books on placer mining. One is a book on making a gold rocker. Chances ae I will never make it to placer country but I will never trade off that book. I thought that was weird LOL. Inquiring minds must know
 
my book shelves are full of various items...mostly centered on subjects i get or was interested in along with how to books and more.

falconry was a great interest at one time.
 
I have alot of cookbooks, but most are not general books. Food production section, great depression era, wartime cooking era, dehydrating, fermenting...you get the idea. And then there's the prepper fiction. And a little bit of amish romance fiction. I also have a section of books on homemaking from a long time ago. And general fiction from the early 1900's.
 
Mine is fairly diverse too. Since coming to Alaska late in life over a decade ago, I have been spending a great deal of time learning about Alaska‘s history and the folks who originally settled the place (native, Russian, America). I have perhaps 100 books on this. I also have books on various scientific disciplines, military history, Christian history, philosophy, American history and the classics (Steinbeck, Hemingway, etc). I went through a phase in the 1990 where I read almost every book by Drucker. If you read his book on Post Capitalist Society, you will see how prophetic he was, but he certainly didn’t anticipate how corrupt those who controlled “knowledge“ would become. He certainly did not advocate for how the “post capitalist society“ would morph and be corrupted by the new world order and the select global elites. Who knows, maybe he did but I missed that connection.

I have really enjoyed my “prepping” books, but the they are atypical. They mostly are books by anthropologists who studied and wrote about pre-contact tribal knowledge, old school agriculture practices, edible and medicinal plants, and even though I am not a mormon, some of their books on their history relating to how the settles and survived during their migration west. I do have some of the often mentioned modern prepping books, but I’ve been very disappointed in almost ever one of those.
 
I left most of my books behind when I left South Africa, that was one of the harder things to let go.
I am once again collecting them, and seem to have a pretty odd lot so far. Heavy on the practical and historical. Cooking, canning, herbal medicine, gardening and agriculture, tracking, tree bird plant identification, construction and maintenance. The Firefox series which I enjoy. As to modern survival books, not so much, just a few like the SAS one. The most random titles are probably 100 uses of Baking soda and the Symbolism of flowers 🤔
Fiction wise has all been digital at the moment.
 
My library is quite diverse. Several old school books, including collage engineering books. Lots of history, military, medical, gardening, herbal medicinal, photography, old maps, lots of local history books of families that settled and lived in this area in the 1700/1800's, Ham radio, antenna building. Very good stock of different bible versions, and reference books to go with them. And plenty of fictional books as well. Plus nearly 1000 books on my Kindle or all kinds of topics.
I wish I time to read more.
 
core interests?!
Apples, pineapples and drilling...
 
My books are mostly "How To", car shop manuals and hot rod, house repairs (wiring, plumbing, general), shop books (welding and such), old hunting and fishing books, old camping and backing books, about 50 gardening books, old school books (math, engineering, programming, HVAC, electronics, lighting, solar) some religious materials and a few shelves of hobby books. Oh I left out cooking and canning, they have 2 bookshelves to themselves.

I look at my old programming books and I think no need to keep these old dead languages and database books, should recycle them and free up a couple of shelves, but then I think but I might....
 
The only books we get rid of are duplicate.

The Princess wouldn't be pleased if I shared an image in theses days. We turned what was once a living room into a library. Every wall is a bookcase. Most of which are double stacked (books behind books).


The Princess has them pretty much sorted so it is possible to find books when we are looking for them. The theme of the bookcases is;

Biblical references and commentaries
Bibles lexicons Hebrew English dictionaries
Biblical references and commentaries
Reference atlases encyclopedia anti nicean fathers
Gardening and farming
How to texts
Prepping and guns
Engineering
Math and science
Computer and information science
Chicks with swords
Chicks with swords
Chicks with swords
Classics
World history and politics

In the office
Engineering and math
IT related references

And The Princess recently added a cookbooks shelf in the second kitchen.

If I am giving a tour of the library I point out the many old bibles (many are 150 years old) sets of old commentaries and the old engineering books from the late steam era.

Note
The "Chicks with swords" bookcases are The Princess's. She loves fiction about women swords and fantasy. She is a voracious reader and can devour a novel in a day. Any wonder that she ended up being one of the top IT experts for one of the country's largest library systems?

Ben
 
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