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“Whenever you think you’ve seen it, there is another hidden room. Little by little, one discovers, floor by floor, more and more secret spaces – and I am sure I still have not seen all of them, filled with books upon books. It’s almost paradise. I’ve always thought of the König bookshop as a sort of paradise.”

Books matter. Making them is a combination of craft and insight. Publishing them is a generous act of faith. Adding to the corpus of shared knowledge is important. Books change the culture when people act on them, even if they don’t sell many copies. And sometimes the backlist surprises the accountants.

But the economics of new books have nothing to... See more

This state the importance of unread books in a library. They're the reflection of the things we don't know. Just like Empty notes are better than no notes at all, it's a very socratic approach, considering his famous quote:

What I know is that I know nothing

Knowing this, we should not expect the proportion of unread books in our library to decrease.... See more