THE BOOK REPORT: How many books do you own?

Do NOT sit down next to me on the bus and start nattering about the weather, excecting me to respond. Do not do it!! Please! It's my valuable time between home/work.

As I live in a sort-of rural area I will in fact answer a maximum two questions, then go back to my reading -- or my phone. You'll be lucky to get a grunt out of me after that. I give you fair warning. Sorry, please don't think I'm being rude :)

EDIT: Man, don't try that on the London Underground, lol ...
Since you live in the UK and I in the USA that won'y won't be a problem.

I thought England was suppose to be 'Jolly Old England'.
 
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Tein, have you ever felt like you want to slowly torture someone to death then bring them back and start again ?
TREAT BOOKS WITH RESPECT.

Waterboarding you mean?

I'm hurt that you should suggest a thing. :giggle:

I mean it's not as though people can't read the bits of the book they've got: decide if they like it and then go and buy a copy themselves.
 
I have 35 it looks like. I've let many go over the years as I moved, so I only hung on to things that have sentimental or personal philosophical value.
IMG_20190212_213616198.jpg
 
REF:Lafayette
Old yes, but not so jolly now days!
But a least we still have free health care for now!!
Plus most of our police officers do not carry guns!!!
 
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Ive got 'the Alchemist'. Dropped off by my daughter, a couple of years ago, but still unread. Have you read it?

I have. It's a very quick read, and is really more of an extended parable than a novel I'd say. The ideas are nothing really new or groundbreaking, but I thought it did a good job conveying those ideas in a simple and engaging format. You won't be blown away by complex characters or an immersive plot. Rather, it's the sort of book you read when feeling a bit overwhelmed or discouraged in life, and hopefully at the end you've got a little more peace of mind and perspective. It's really about how easy it is to get caught up in a specific disappointment or failure and focus on how that keeps up from attaining what we want, to the extent that we don't see how those failures are often necessary to make sure we're "ready" when those wants are actually within reach.
 
I had a nagging sense Coelho was nudging events to make sure his ending arrived at the philosophical point he was trying to make and wasn't covering his interference quite as well as one would like. Even so, I think Soulsinging has pretty well summarized the final effect of the book on the reader. It's a hopeful journey and seems to be a touchstone for at least one generation of readers needing a hopeful ending.

Randy M.
 
I had a nagging sense Coelho was nudging events to make sure his ending arrived at the philosophical point he was trying to make and wasn't covering his interference quite as well as one would like. Even so, I think Soulsinging has pretty well summarized the final effect of the book on the reader. It's a hopeful journey and seems to be a touchstone for at least one generation of readers needing a hopeful ending.

Randy M.

There was definitely a heavy authorial hand guiding events... deus ex authorina? I'm pretty sure I read it around the same time I was 1) in the thick of GRRM and Abercrombie's series and 2) beginning to feel the effects of the impending financial meltdown... so I'd agree the message was timely for me and a lot of other people. It was kind of a brief cultural phenom, and I often pair it mentally with Life of Pi, which was released a little earlier I think. Both successful fiction/pop-philosophy mashups.
 
I have. It's a very quick read, and is really more of an extended parable than a novel I'd say. The ideas are nothing really new or groundbreaking, but I thought it did a good job conveying those ideas in a simple and engaging format. You won't be blown away by complex characters or an immersive plot. Rather, it's the sort of book you read when feeling a bit overwhelmed or discouraged in life, and hopefully at the end you've got a little more peace of mind and perspective. It's really about how easy it is to get caught up in a specific disappointment or failure and focus on how that keeps up from attaining what we want, to the extent that we don't see how those failures are often necessary to make sure we're "ready" when those wants are actually within reach.
I had a nagging sense Coelho was nudging events to make sure his ending arrived at the philosophical point he was trying to make and wasn't covering his interference quite as well as one would like. Even so, I think Soulsinging has pretty well summarized the final effect of the book on the reader. It's a hopeful journey and seems to be a touchstone for at least one generation of readers needing a hopeful ending.

Randy M.
Ok I'll take on the bus to work and see if I get into it. It's quite thin, so not a brick to have in my bag, which is a requirement for 'bus books'.

You know when I was younger I could enjoy the philosophical stuff. I suppose as I've got a bit older I've developed a philosophy by experience. Every now and again something or someone may come along to shake it around a bit, but I'm no longer the sponge for philosophical thoughts and ideas I once was.

So if I find it a bit mundane, I usually just put it aside, without perhaps persevering on to discover hidden gems. Marcus Aurelius suffered that fate in my hands, I'm afraid. Even though Jeeves often quotes him. There wasn't enough original thought to keep my attention.

But it might have ignited me when I was young.

I prefer trying to know a bit about the strange mysteries of 21st century science these days. It moves so fast.
 
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Here's a compilation of readers writing about their personal libraries.


My own official count has inched up to 4,014. Spring-cleaning downsizing of reading matter is, I think, imminent, but I might toss some old magazines that I saved when the university threw away nearly all of its serials archive, rather than eliminating very many books.
 
Is anyone able to contrast his or her library in the early teen years with present holdings?

I have been working on a decent estimate of my book collection as of when I was approaching my 15th birthday, about 50 years ago. Around that time I might have owned something like 80 books, of which about 40 would have been science fiction (not counting books by Tolkien, etc.). As for now, thanks to a box of freebies from a Seattle-area friend, I'm up to 4,110 books, of which nowhere near half are sf!
 
I'm activating this thread in case anyone would like to post here.

My current count is 4,184, not counting a box of books I don't want to keep. There will probably be some weeding this year. The spare bedroom has piles of books on the floor -- I mean so many that you have to pick your path carefully.
 
Responses are starting to come in at the thread I created some weeks ago to prepare for this thread.

Please use this thread, from now on, to report your numbers if you are so inclined. I reported 4,086 volumes as of May 25. However, I'd forgotten my own principle #4 below, which will add about 100 volumes to the total.

Here were the criteria that I proposed to follow for what counts as a book. No one is obliged to follow them.

1.Electronic books don't count.
2.Telephone books don't count. (See also #7 below.)
3.Books that are yours only for use during your time on a job don't count.
4.Bound volumes of magazines do count, but loose magazines don't count.
5.Items that one has bound with staples don't count as books. (I have a number of novels that I downloaded from Project Gutenberg, printed, and bound with large staples. I'm not going to count these as books.) However, something like a fan-published book that is bound with staples will count. I have Harry Warner's fan history A Wealth of Fable in the form of three mimeographed and stapled "volumes." It will count as one book. (But see #8 below.)
6.Diaries, personal journals, scrapbooks, and photo albums don't count as books.
7.Ephemera such as Penney's or Monkey Ward's catalogs, paperback almanacs, college catalogs, and bookseller catalogs don't count, but school and college yearbooks do count as books. I own four city directories. They will add four books to my count.
8.Each volume of a multi-volume book counts as a book. For example, the two-volume Ballantine Fantasy editions of The Night Land and The Well at the World's End will add up to four books, not two. A forty-volume encyclopaedia set counts as 40 books.
9.Duplicate copies of books certainly do count. The idea is to count books, not "titles."
10.If you're married, it's up to you whether you count all the books in your household or not.
Here’s a thread on how many book. It’s been inactive but there are some nice responses.
 
My fiction is less than three feet. I left a lot of badly-decayed bookclub editions with my ex. I just tend to consume a lot of television/movies since my eyesight and attention span have degraded.
 
How many books do I own???
I really have no idea, as a life long bookaholic I have been collecting since the early 70s.
I should think 10,000 plus with 1 or 2000 magazines on top.
I have filled two rooms plus plenty of overspill!!!
Help, I need a bigger house!!!
I think this was the Chrons record, so far as the postings indicated.
 
Back on 30 Sept. 2017, AndrewT wrote:

"He never went out without a book under his arm, and he often came back with two..."

That scans!
Or nearly.
 
My official count has, today, for the first time, reached 4,444 books.

The two books that brought the total today to that number were bought at sprawling BDS Books in Fargo, North Dakota, and were

1.Richard Overy, The Twilight Years: The Paradox of Britain Between the Wars
2.Dorothy L. Sayers, The Nine Tailors

The Sayers is a replacement copy, my first copy being now fallen to pieces. I haven't decided whether to throw that copy away, or give it away if someone wants it, or to keep it as my first Sayers book and one that has some markings by me in it.

It's likely I'll dispose of the worn-out copy the next time I get a book so that I can keep the total at 4,444, and that I will find other books to remove from my library as further additions arrive in order to preserve 4,444 for a good while.
 
I'm around the 3,000 mark divided into 27 subcateogires. I'm in the process of performing a full inventory, so I'll have a more accurate figure in time.
Was this the last posting here at Chrons from Gollum? I miss him. One of our most literary commenters.

-- No, I find one as late as 1 Jan. 2017.... checked again -- was 1 April 2017 his last visit?
 

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