How many books do you own?

[DaisyDay]

I wonder if anyone owns thousands. Interesting thought.

Some people buy books by the yard, not to read, but to decorate. Do you remember in the Great Gatsby, someone in his library, impressed that the books were all real, but with the pages uncut? Nowadays, all books come pre-cut, but back then, the pages were bound folded, but not cut so you could see right away that a book was unread.

If you come from a long line of book owners, unless you are a discarder (as opposed to a hoarder), you could wind up with thousands of books.

 

[Tuur]

Have an unknown number of hardback and paperback, and of e-books. Public domain e-books are sort of like eating potato chips. Included in this number are public domain PDFs. The advantage of e-books is that they don't take up shelf space. The disadvantage is that you need an e-reader, and those with DRM lock you in with a particular distributor. A check of a partial list of e-books is over 1,000.

That doesn't mean I've read every one cover to cover. Many are reference books. Near where I'm sitting I have four hymnals, purchased at an estate sale. On the same shelf is a wiring manual. Looking at another bookshelf, there's a collection of Popular Mechanics books and a dictionary. Some books I've picked up on sale and haven't read yet, and really should. There are some books I can't bring myself to complete. Ben Hur is one. Ann Rand's Atlas Shrugged is another.