You can learn a lot about who a person is trying to become by the books in their library. My interest, limited though it might be, is primarily who does Patrick Collison want to become ?

I use Goodreads for the same principle.

> My interest, limited though it might be, is primarily who does Patrick Collison want to become ?

No offence but what does that question even mean. Can't a person wish merely to become better read, more knowledgeable, both stoke and satisfy a lifelong inquisitiveness?

The person you've described seems like they are choosing a person to become. A person who wishes to become better read and more knowledgeable wants to become a different person than a person who wants to read solely pulp mysteries.

Patrick Collison is widely regarded as a smart, thoughtful, and accomplished, and I don't think it's weird to want to know what he thinks is important to know in the future.

> I've only read about half of the books here.

Even the author of the post hasn't read his whole library yet.

Perhaps he is of the Umberto Eco school; https://www.brainpickings.org/2015/03/24/umberto-eco-antilib...

From the original post: "(I guess I fall somewhere in the middle in the Umberto Eco theory of the library.)"

Patrick Collison is enormously well read and just generally an interesting thinker. That leads me to be interested in his curation of what books he thinks matter.