umberto eco’s antilibrary

T
he writer Umberto Eco belongs to that small class of scholars who are
encyclopedic, insightful, and nondull. He is the owner of a large per-
sonal library (containing thirty thousand books), and separates visi-
tors into two categories: those who react with “Wow! Signore professore
dottore Eco, what a library you have! How many of these books have you
read?” and the others-a
very small minority-who get the point that a
private library is not an ego-boosting appendage but a research tool. Read
books are far less valuable than unread ones. The library should contain
as much of what you do not know as your financial means, mortgage
rates, and the currently tight real-estate market allow you to put there.
You will accumulate more knowledge and more books as you grow older,
and the growing number of unread books on the shelves will look at
you
menacingly. Indeed, the more you know, the larger the rows of unread
books. Let us call this collection of unread books an antilibrary.

the black swan – taleb