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kaolinite | 8 years ago

I've read more in the past 12 months than in the past few years, purely because I discovered a company in the UK called the Folio Society[1]. They sell beautifully bound and illustrated editions of fantastic books, although at rather high prices (£30-40 on average).

Previously the majority of the books I read came in the form of cheap ebooks from the Kindle store. As a result, I often abandoned them (or even just forgot about them), only reading a few chapters. Now though, when I spend £30 on a single book, damn right am I going to finish it.

Plus, as a result of the curation, there isn't a single book on their site that isn't at least worth a glance. The same can't be said for many physical bookstores, let alone Amazon, etc.

And, the best part is, I don't really need these expensive books anymore. I've gotten into such a habit of reading because of them that I'm buying regular books again and I'm reading for at least an hour or two a night.

[1] http://foliosociety.com

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vog|8 years ago

> when I spend £30 on a single book, damn right am I going to finish it.

That's an interesting exploitation of the sunk cost fallacy. [1][2]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunk_cost#Loss_aversion_and_th...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Escalation_of_commitment

mamon|8 years ago

That's only works if

a) cost is high enough compared to your income

b) you are a reasonable person, and value your money enough to care

I tried to use this tactic many times, mostly to hone my programming skills - didn't work. Damn, I recently entered a postgraduate program at the university, for 2500$ cost - didn't help much, still can't force myself to spend more time learning things.

branchless|8 years ago

Tens of thousands of people join gyms for the same reason and stop after a few weeks.

5_minutes|8 years ago

Thank you for this! What a fantastic resource. This is going to hurt my wallet.