Sixteen years ago, living in Thailand, I didn’t really have any collection of books. What my dad had in the study room was what I read, albeit most books were political in nature (which is probably why I have been so keen in politics since).
Fast forward to the late 90’s when I was an art student, I actually started to have a small collection of books — arts (of course) and many philosophical in nature (my “soul searching” days, like the kind my brother is experiencing right now).
When I moved from New York City to the Golden State, I essentially ditched all those “soul searching” and literature arts stuff. Well, partially it was because I got married (what more is there to search for?), and another reason was that a totally different part of the brain took over — I started getting more interested in programming, web development and Linux server administration. And as a result, my book collections grew accordingly. You know you’ve met a geek when you see a shelf full of books with programming and other geeky goodies.
Now, after four and half years, the pendulum has swung back to other hemisphere of the brain (the half that makes society civilized and bearable) — arts. So I’ve slowly started ditching and donating my tech books. In their place, the shelf is slowly being filled with books of arts related topics.
Now if only I have the time to actually read through each and everyone of them from cover to cover like Brian seemingly to be able to do… then life would be all good.