how many books do you own?

not including e-books

At a guess, around three to four hundred?

at a guess, around two or three hundred?

at a guess, around four to five hundred?

Fewer and fewer, outside of childrens books. I'm hanging onto photography and art books, comic books, and a couple of old favorites where I'm environmentally attached to the memories or the smell or something. Everything else head been ebooks for years.

27,465

Sentimentally

a book a day since you were born?

xpost

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/4/4c/BooksDoFurnishARoom.jpg/200px-BooksDoFurnishARoom.jpg

sorry

loads! i'm great at acquiring things and rubbish at getting rid of them

More than I can comfortably fit in the flat, less than I feel I should have.

In the near neighborhood of 450, assuming I include my trail guides, programming books and other reference books. If it's literary books only, then a bit under 400 I would guess.

I weed my library regularly. There's a core of maybe 350 books that I seldom change out and only slowly add to. Beyond that are about 40 or 50 titles that float in and out fairly rapidly, as I read them or give up on them, then sell them or give them away.

books are hard to count because they're so many different shape & sizes (and mine are not all clustered together). i'm guessing a couple of thousand, if you include graphic novels.

heh i always imagined Aimless lived in something akin to the great library of alexandria!

mooching round the flat, think i might have been a bit conservative in my estimation, which is somewhat sobering to realise in a way

Hm, I've just stocktook our bedroom and there are 128 books in it. We have roughly five times as much shelfroom in our actual library downstairs - I may report back with an accurate figure later.

One way I keep down the total number of books is buying "The Collected Works of..." volumes. For example, the one-volume edition of all Orwell's essays from Everyman's Library, or all of John MacPhee's half-dozen geology narratives collected as Annals of the Former World.

Another reason I have so few books, comparatively speaking, for someone who has been an avid buyer of books for decades, is linked to my passion for backpacking (aka 'trekking' among euro-types). I hate the endless piling up of possessions. I do better in a simpler, less-cluttered environment.

Somewhere around 1500 - 2000, I think, in total. I appreciate Aimless's desire to avoid clutter but I think books do rather furnish a room.

We have 777 books that I can see right now, plus 79 kids' books. No doubt there are others.

loads! i'm great at acquiring things and rubbish at getting rid of them

― Jaap and roids (NickB), Wednesday, January 30, 2013 6:12 AM (7 hours ago) Bookmark

So many books

currently about 200 I think. still trying to whittle down, not rly succeeding. it's staying even or creeping up slightly.

I think books do rather furnish a room.

Speaking of which, It's 2008! What Do Your Books Look Like?

There are 24 more under the bed, and the missus has just reminded me about the two boxes we put up in the loft last summer. Then there's at least six more boxes at my parents'. I think I'm going to stop now.

Somewhere north of 3000, i think - maybe 4000. I have over 1000 Penguin Classics.

I have a very high turnover, though, as i live in a small flat. I give hundreds away to charity every few months and get hundreds more.

a thousand, i think? i feel like one reason i want to move away from l.a. and to, idk, chicago or w/e is bc we could afford to buy a bigger place and have an actual study w/a wall of books.

the most insignificant reason to move, of course.

i live in chicago and have more than a wall of books!

Three 4 feet tall book cases and a big pile on the floor.

living the dream

http://johnesimpson.com/images/wall_of_books.jpg

1,200-1,500ish I think. Comfortable with that. It's barely one a week for 25 years of buying books.

I purge lightly occasionally.

a few thousand i think

can't venture a guess (less than a lot of you). Leave 2 dozen every time I move. Last move I discovered I'd bought two copies of Vol 1 of Simon Callow's bio of Orson Welles. (haven't read it yet)

Thinking about it is stressful, have to buy more books to calm down

I keep buying them and really don't have an idea. Don't tend to get rid of them either.
Keep hitting 99c sales and coming away with stacks that remain unread ages later though I fully intend to get back to them.

So have hundreds, not sure quite how many hundreds.

I tried counting my to-be-read books a few years ago and stopped, slightly woozy, when I got to 150

has to be in the thousands total.

ratio of library books to bought books much higher these days as I run out of space

you should probably return some of those library books eventually!

library books...I've got more than a few

http://images1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20110502191030/seinfeld/images/1/1e/Bookman.jpg

i've got about 30 books on each individual shelf, and about 45 individual shelves spread over umpteem different bookcases so approx 1350 books?

probaby close to 10,000

i have a problem

gf says im a hoarder..

i certainly don't have as much as i used to. and i've gotten a lot better at getting rid of books. i used to keep everything for years and now i only really keep essential/favorite books/authors and books i still haven't read. so a large percentage of what's in the house is stuff i still haven't gotten to. it feels cool to have big shelves of unread books to choose from. i have a big shelf just for sci-fi i have accumulated. if i don't dig something i put it in the store. if i don't want to finish something i put it in the store. i sold some of my stuff when i had a small store in philadelphia and later i worked at a gourmet-type coffee place on rittenhouse square in philly and the owner let me stock two big shelves of books in the place and sell the books and keep all the money. that got me used to parting with books instead of hoarding them. and now its pretty easy. it is weird now when someone buys something in my place and i remember where i bought it 20 years ago. although after 4 years of being open there isn't much of my old stuff left. some of them i had in my old store in philly in the early 90's! those books have moved a lot.

like 350 in my apartment, several hundred more in my dad's house, plus dibs on his collection

Huge collections are good, but I sometimes find that I concentrate better if I only have one book near me. I wouldn't want a big shelf of unread books staring at me, with their judging eyes. o_O

I've currently got around 900 books in my flat. That's after I gave away about 250 when I moved.

about 250 at my place, plus however many are at my parents' (a couple hundred?). both of my parents are librarians and i grew up in a house filled w/ books, so having lots of books is as much about comfort for me as it is about being able to instantly refer back to something or reread.

probably around 200? I give most away after I read them.

my books aren't even all located in the same state. so i dunno, more than a thousand?

300 or so, been around that number for years. my mom and her husband own i'd guess 5000, shelves 3 deep

We need more pix of collections, personal libraries here

The bookcase in our bedroom, featuring at least one book by an ilxor

didn't know Fizzles on Lanchester was out

books written by ilxors would be a fun thread. i've got at least 2 (it takes a nation of millions 33 1/3 & stairway to hell)

i read a lot but i use the library for the most part. i probably own 75-100 "real" books, not including like, baseball biographies i've had since i was in middle school

Pretty much every wall in my flat looks like this/

are there so much Penguin books in the world?

There are! I have another two book-cases full of them, with more stacked up to the ceiling on top. There are the standard UK ones and special editions only published in the US, Canada and India so there seems to be an endless supply.

I think I have about 200 here, mostly academic ones, and another 300 or so, mostly fiction, boxed up in my mum's house doomed to remain until some kind soul agrees to drive the eight hours down the road. I miss having everything available to me and characterfully on display, but then more than once I've drunkenly given people an unwanted tour of my library from A to Z, so maybe it's for the best.