Member: incunabulum

CollectionsYour library (70)

Reviews11 reviews

TagsBenjamin Graham (3), Warren Buffett (2), Louis Rukeyser (2), California (1), Chianti (1), Concord (1), Cabernet Sauvignon (1), Paul Cabot (1), Catawba (1), Riesling (1) — see all tags

Cloudstag cloud, author cloud

GroupsAncient History, Used Books

About meI'm intrigued by what other LibraryThings people have been saying (typing) about their, uh, tendencies toward picking up used books...and can only say that I've yet to see a used book store, free book stand or yard sale that I don't like - or don't walk away from empty handed. :-)

I initially joined LT to leave comments...but like my book collecting tendencies, couldn't help adding a few books to the database here, adding a few reviews, etc. Let me know if you think my reviews too shallow, etc.

I do have to say that my absolute favourite corner of the web is wikipedia. Granted, it's essentially an open source encyclopedia, with the in-bourne hazards implied in open source, but it's breadth and depth is awesome. For example, today alone I've looked up and read (after finding LibraryThing yesterday):
- ETF's (Exchange Traded Funds) [Investopedia's info was sketchy],
- Charles Dickens (which led me to begin reading his Sketches by Boz, on Gutenberg),
- Incunabulum (to be sure of spelling and usage - it's a darned cool word with a fascinating past and present)
- Walking Tall (the movie I watched this past evening), and relatedly, Bufford Pusser.

An interesting wikipedia link-journey several weeks ago brought me to the quote below: I have a book containing Shakespeare's comedies and sonnets, as well as a general history of Shakespeare's life and culture (I'll catalogue it as soon as I find it - I've been using it to read my son to sleep - the book works quite well for that, slipped in between readings of The Goblet of Fire! ;-). Intrigued by the sonnets, I checked wikipedia's entry on Shakespeare, and followed links from the sonnet eventually to Petrarch, who seems to have borrowed the sonnet form from Sicilian poems. Petrarch is noted for having said, in regards to earlier cultures losing touch with (not copying, or outright destroying, as conquering armies sometimes do) previously published knowledge:

"Each famous author of antiquity whom I recover places a new offence and another cause of dishonor to the charge of earlier generations, who, not satisfied with their own disgraceful barrenness, permitted the fruit of other minds, and the writings that their ancestors had produced by toil and application, to perish through insufferable neglect. Although they had nothing of their own to hand down to those who were to come after, they robbed posterity of its ancestral heritage."
Petrarch

The article on Petrarch also mentions that his large library was left to the city of Venice, helping to form the Biblioteca Marciana...which is where I learned about the fascinating existence of incunabula.

The two blogs I'm working on:
Bamboo Thoughts and dailypetabyte

As well as one podcast:
Minute Lit
produced by the creators of Bamboo Thoughts and LyriqueTragedy

About my libraryTags: sci fi, fantasy, science, mathematics, Tai Chi Ch'uan, Chinese philosophy, I Ching, Lao Tse, Tao Te Ching, bamboo, Marion Zimmer Bradley, Ayn Rand, Anne McCaffrey, Orson Scott Card, Douglas Adams, Richard Dawkins, John Matthew Barrie, yoga, podcasting, PodCamp Pittsburgh, investing, Security Analysis, Benjamin Graham, Special Situation Investments, Apple, ipod, calculus, business, fundamental analysis, technical analysis, wikipedia, Homer, Odysseus, Penelope, Ithaca, Menelaus, Achilleus, Patroklos, Socrates, Aristotle, Alexander the Great, Philip II of Macedon, Shakespeare, Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, The Oracle of Omaha

Real namesee e-mail address...

Locationon the old historic Lincoln Highway, just East of Pittsburgh

Emailalex.landefeldgmail.com

Favorite authorsNone

Account typepublic, free

Connection NewsConnection News

URLs http://www.librarything.com/profile/incunabulum (profile)
http://www.librarything.com/catalog/incunabulum (library)

Common KnowledgeSeries (20), Awards (70), Characters (128), Places (39)

Member sinceFeb 11, 2007