Today’s Book Blogger Hop question is: Do you look at your shelves and stacks of books and wonder how you have ever read so many books?
I don’t wonder precisely that, but I guess I do wonder similar things. I get most of my books from the library, so I know that the books on my own personal shelves (700 or so) are only a fraction of the total books I’ve read. I’ve read daily for as long as I can remember, so the total number doesn’t feel shockingly high to me. Or maybe it’s just that I’ve done enough math to get used to the idea.
Since I feel like I rarely buy books, I do sometimes wonder how I amassed as many as I own! Some I’ve had for twenty years, though, and there have been some notable trips to library book sales that brought home a dozen books, so I guess it’s added up over time.
I also sometimes wonder how I would ever have time to reread all the books I own, if I wanted to, because there are so many other new books in the world. I feel vaguely as though I reread most beloved books every several years, but mathematically, it would probably take me five years of nothing but rereading to get through my collection…so, yeah, there are some books I’ve owned and not reread for a long time! But perhaps someday – that’s why I bought them, after all.
Does it sometimes surprise you how many books you’ve read, or how many you own?
I am going to get a bigger bookshelf for the additional books I have accumulated. I will tell myself, “read faster, read faster!… there are still so many other books!” It is amazing that there is no book limit and one can read them whenever they want.
‘I also sometimes wonder how I would ever have time to reread all the books I own,’ I have trouble with this too. And there are so many on the shelf I bought, wanting to read and still haven’t. And more books keeping coming online (fortunately into my kindle, more often than the shelf).
Having tried to keep my TBR under 300, then 400, then 500… I gave up and now just to have fewer books on my TBR than I’ve listed as read. It torubles me that I’m probabluy over 2/3rd through my life… but hey, life is for reading, isn’t it!
I keep track of the books I’ve read, by month, for each year. I’ve done that for the last seven years. It always surprises me to see the total number at the end of the year – anywhere from 60 to over 100. This year will be on the higher end because of the pandemic and staying home more. That makes more time to read. 🙂 Most of my books are e-books or from the library. I don’t know how many books I own, but they take up space in about 4 shelves of a 5-shelf Ikea bookshelf, so it’s not a huge number. Of those, many are spirituality oriented and I do reread them from time to time.