THE BOOK REPORT: How many books do you own?

Extollager said:

A collector with parents who collect! I don't seem to run into that very often.

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My parents collected a wide range. 200+ on the Maya, 100+ on birds, 500+ on Geology and Engineering with an emphasis on ancient texts. 1000+ Mysteries. 200+ on vintage cars. 400+ History. 200+ Science Fiction. 400+ on the Oregon trail. 200+ Biographies.

Some of the titles they will retain are 20 or so Mark Twain 1sts, A complete set of Josephine Tey in 1st( I gave these to my Mom over 10 years of acquisitions). A Herbert Hoover translated and signed De Re Metallica. A first edition set of Incidents of Travel in Central America, Chiapas and Yucatán, Vols. 1 & 2. A large folio printing of the History of the MG signed by Phil Hill, Jackie Stewart, and Mario Andretti( They got this signed while attending the Pebble Beach Concours). I found a rare treasure for my father, a complete set of bound blueprints of every working mine in the Continental US from 1880 to 1960. It was compiled by the US Government and I found it in a dumpster dive in Fresno California in the early 80's. He loved bringing these to Geology conventions. People would be 3 deep at his table to look at the history of the mines they worked in as young men.

It will be a challenge as this will double my collection size but I probably will retain the best 20%.

I love books!

As for insurance I made a 70 minute video of the condition, edition state, and dust jacket condition of my expensive books and had a American Booksellers Assoc. Dealer give her estimate of the value at the end. I will get the quoted value of the collection as I have supplemental insurance for this as well as my 1952 MGTD. If you have a valuable collection it's worth the small extra amount to be secure against fire and flood.

K. Riehl mentioned "400+ on the Oregon trail."

Wowwwww. Wonderful!

They are part of the 0regon Trail Society. They have gone to museums, private collections, historical societies, and families to scan in original trail diaries. They and a group of about 80 volunteers have cataloged and referenced a searchable database. Paper Trail — Pioneer Wagon Train Diaries
OCTA : Oregon-California Trails Association

It was something fun to do when they retired. They also got the government/Forest Service to provide super accurate GPS units. They would go out with a historian, an archeologist, a photographer( my parents) and using a metal detector look for items that would confirm that a given trail was part of the trail system. Find the object, dig it up, get confirmation by the historian/archeologist, photo record it, rebury it and set up a marker if it was a confirmation that the given section on old trail could be confirmed as a branch of the Oregon/California Trail. 14 years of work covering from Missouri to California/Oregon /Washington. They wore out two Jeeps doing this work.

My father developed the database( taught himself SQL at 70 years old) they are now approaching their 80's and are passing the database off to a University to make sure it is maintained and updated. 600,000 entries.

TheEndIsNigh said:

Save the planet and all that. There are a few exceptions. So I would estimate i only have 50 to 60 actual complete books. Oddly when I return books to the library I get some odd looks, but in this over PC world where no one is supposed to be offended I just shrug my shoulders and look innocent. Sometimes I get a fine but usually they just don't bother. Occasionally if i like a book enough to read it twice I have to use the back cover too. After that it's straight on the fire.

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If you're all about saving the planet, you should know that this practice means 1) the book you returned probably winds up in a landfill, 2) the library has to buy ANOTHER copy, ensuring more printing of paper, and 3) the replacement costs taxpayers which is less money for... say, cleaning up parks.

Do what you want to your own books, but it is shockingly narcissistic and selfish to tear apart community books from a library. That's not YOUR book to destroy. There are literally thousands of free/cheap things to stick in there to mark your place. You're probably the type that would let your dog poop in someone's yard and feel no obligation to clean it up.

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!!!

REF: TheEndIsNigh.
YOU BURN BOOKS !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
ARRRRRRRRRGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
That's terrible, why don't you take them to a charity shop for goodness sake!

962

BigBadBob141 said:

REF: TheEndIsNigh.
YOU BURN BOOKS !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
ARRRRRRRRRGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
That's terrible, why don't you take them to a charity shop for goodness sake!

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They wont accept them. They're fussy about them missing the covers. Besides why have a log burning stove and buy wood? Have you insured your library?

The answer is no as I have no idea what my collection is worth, and I shudder to think what I have paid for it over the years!
Plus I could never replace it!
P.S. Stop tearing the covers off your books!!!!!
Get a book marker!
P.P.S. Sorry if I come over a bit strong but to me damaging a book deliberately is a complete NO NO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I think maybe The End IsNight is just pulling our leg.

Around the house, I guess I still have 400 or 500 books: fiction of all sorts, reference, gardening, art and music, a lot of cultural and historical stuff, and some on electronics and math. I probably had about 300 scifi novels 5 years ago, but I donated most of the paperbacks when I moved.

I'm trying to go cold turkey at the moment and stop buying books!
But oh boy it is not easy!

BigBadBob141 said:

I'm trying to go cold turkey at the moment and stop buying books!
But oh boy it is not easy!

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I hear you.

If I hold off and don't buy something else, my most recent book purchase will be Edwards' biography of Tolkien, which, according to authority John Rateliff, is a sleeper:

Sacnoth's Scriptorium: Keeping it close to his chest . . .

That would be a nice book purchase at which to pause. Of course, it won't stay The Last Book I Ever Bought for long!

I've been reading Fitzgerald's Letters of Robert Southey: A Selection (1912). Southey was the friend or acquaintance of Coleridge, Wordsworth, de Quincey, Shelley, et al., and a major poet in his day (Poet Laureate from 1813-1843, when he died). I am enjoying the letters a great deal and thought some folks here would like the way he talks about his books.

He writes, 26 April 1808, from Keswick, where he's settled:

You saw me in London everlastingly at work in packing my books; and here they are now lying in all parts about me, up to my knees in one place, up to my eyes in another, and above head and ears in a third. I can scarcely find stepping places through the labyrinth, from one end of the room to the other. Like Pharaoh's frogs, they have found their way everywhere, even into the bedchambers. And now, Grosvenor, having been married above twelve years, I have for the first time collected all my books together. What a satisfaction this is you cannot imagine, for you cannot conceive the hundredth part of the inconvenience and vexation I have endured for want of them.

And further writes, 5 May 1808:

Of our journey homeward, safe arrival, and finding all well, and as it should be, you have heard from Tom. Since he wrote I have been in a state of happy confusion, occasioned by the arrival of my books, two-and-twenty packages. Here they are at last, after so many years that I have been wanting them, wishing for them, and yet never able to get them together; here they are gathered under one roof. ...I have had a range of shelves run up along one side of the passage which connects the two houses from the floor to the ceiling. It holds about 1,350 volumes, and is denominated Duck Row...There must be yet a small stand of shelves on the upper landing-place to hold about 200 ....

I'm unobliged, but: I had most of the SF paperbacks, short story collections in particular... that there are/were./ Mebbe.... oh... conservatively... 2500 SFF-related PBs. Gone, all gone. (Tirades, gnashing, agonized ululating>HerE) ..but... did I mention..? I found a Kindle and it works!
It works! It has books and books on it, and pictures, and covers and everything. I'm back up to approx. 200 books (and comikz) and by golly it's good, because those books were big, not as big and heavy as the 3000 vinyl LPs were..( have them ALL back on PC) ... so.... now, there is much, MucH more space left for my collection of stone tools, which is large and growing with every foray into the wilderness.... and is a very heavy collection, and can NOT and will NEVER be able to be reduced to bits and bytes.

J Riff said:

I'm unobliged, but: I had most of the SF paperbacks, short story collections in particular... that there are/were./ Mebbe.... oh... conservatively... 2500 SFF-related PBs. Gone, all gone. (Tirades, gnashing, agonized ululating>HerE) ..but... did I mention..? I found a Kindle and it works!
It works! It has books and books on it, and pictures, and covers and everything. I'm back up to approx. 200 books (and comikz) and by golly it's good, because those books were big, not as big and heavy as the 3000 vinyl LPs were..( have them ALL back on PC) ... so.... now, there is much, MucH more space left for my collection of stone tools, which is large and growing with every foray into the wilderness.... and is a very heavy collection, and can NOT and will NEVER be able to be reduced to bits and bytes.

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3d printer? Plus you can spend more time on this site instead of risking your life in those forays into the world.

Extollager said:

I hear you.

If I hold off and don't buy something else, my most recent book purchase will be Edwards' biography of Tolkien, which, according to authority John Rateliff, is a sleeper:

Sacnoth's Scriptorium: Keeping it close to his chest . . .

That would be a nice book purchase at which to pause. Of course, it won't stay The Last Book I Ever Bought for long!

Click to expand...

I'm reading Edwards' biography of Tolkien now--it's very good. It took many weeks to arrive in North Dakota from a seller in Wales.

A bankers' box of books that I packed at my folks' house in Oregon should arrive today, or soon, and that will boost my number by 40 volumes or so. How rapidly the book count announced above has become out of date.

J Riff, there's obviously a story there about your bygone paperback holdings. I'll bet you have told it here at Chrons already. If so and if you could provide a link to that account, I don't suppose I'm the only person who would be interested in the story.

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.

Small flat and small bookshelf - 32 books. But, can make some space by chucking three Lance Armstrong books