Bravo on that 10th reading of LOTR!
I began to read books written primarily for adults, such as LOTR, when I was around 11. Science fiction and fantasy stories were my gateway books into adult fiction.
This thread got me thinking, and I have begun to wonder how many books, in the sense of titles, I have read in over 40 years of reading adult fiction. By "titles," I mean that The Fellowship of the Ring counts as one book, not as 13, although that is how many times I have read it.
Because I reread so much, I wonder if, in over 40 years of steady reading of adult books, I have yet to read a thousand books -- fiction and nonfiction -- in their entirety. Am I even close to a thousand?
I don't feel bad at all about the idea that, though I have been a lifelong reader and although I am an English teacher, I may not have read all that many books. I would estimate that the overall quality of what I have read is pretty high. I have, for example, in the genre of mystery/crime/detective fiction, read and reread Raymond Chandler and Arthur Conan Doyle, and have often dropped mysteries that, for whatever reasons, were failing to hold my interest. I take Chandler and Doyle to be of high quality in the genre in which they worked.
Rereading seems to me like revisiting a place one finds somehow appealing. No one reproaches someone who loves an art gallery or a park for going there repeatedly.
As regards people who read a lot but rarely reread, I wonder if they don't "consume" books. I'm reminded of something George Orwell wrote (it might have been in the essay "Bookshop Memories"), about customers who would pay small fees to borrow mystery (?) novels. He mentions someone who would pick a book off the shelf, start reading -- then say, Oh, I've had this one already -- and return it to the shelf. I suppose this reader reads to pass the time by trying to solve a puzzle, and would feel bad if memory of the solution returned after the reader had invested time in the book. Conversely, I have read The Hound of the Baskervilles multiple times and have little doubt I will read it again. I will do so knowing that the hound is a large dog painted with some glowing substance, that a villain will try to escape and apparently lose his life in the Grimpen Mire, etc. The novel has a lot to offer, such as atmosphere, beyond plot.
Still .... I wonder how many books (titles) I've read!
