Personal libraries

So how many books do you own? And in what categories?

And more importantly (at least to a bibliophile like myself) how many books are in your "to be read" pile?

I mostly have sci-fi, sci-fact, fantasy, and comedy.
I'm pretty sure the numbers are in the hundreds.
I think i've read at least 75% of 'em.

So how many books do you own?

Do comic books also count? 80-125 mainly hardbacks (cb's @ 1100-1500)

And in what categories?

Fiction mainly with Fantasy & SciFi weighing in heavly.

And more importantly (at least to a bibliophile like myself) how many books are in your "to be read" pile?

5-8

Only 5-8 unread, Chrono? Either you don't buy books very quickly, or you read much faster than I do...

Since I started this, it's time for me to fess up.

Personal library: approx. 600-700 books. Most are scifi-fantasy, with a significant chunk of the rest being gaming, hobby-related, or historical.

My wife's library: 500-600, about 75% romances (I know, it's her addiction, not mine) the rest children's books and college texts.

As for my unread collection: 50-60 novels, 20 non-fiction or so. My wife is around 60 or so, almost all romances...

***wanders off to get the next phase of the auto-cataloging software working...***

Those unread ones are the ones that I buy. I don't like unread books gathering dust.

On a good month I'll average about 2-4 books a week. But lately I've not been reading more then 1 or 2 books in 2-3 weeks. But some of that's in combination with having nearly read the local library's entire SciFi collection and having to wait for the author's to write more material. Especially a specific author's book that are always good reads(cases in point Roger MacBride Allen, R.A. Salvatore, and Timothy Zahn).

I own every paperback written for the TOS series and TNG and the New Frontier series. I have not kept up with Voyager or DS-9, but I also have every Star Trek Hardback ever written. Most of my library consists of Sci FI and a few humorous novels.

My library... letsa see.....


I must say that I have oh...about 150-200 books :P


In the scifi catagory...stuff like... the classic's; Bradberry's Martian Chronicles, Heinlin's Stranger in a Strange Land, War of the Worlds by Well's, Philip K. Dick's DO Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, and several short story anthologies, all the way to Star Wars and Trek books.

In the Mystery catagory.... Every single Sherlock Holms story, the novel's and all the short stories , Poirot and Ms. Marple mysteries by Agatha Christie and even The Advantures of Jummy Dale (1890sommit edition)

My Fantasy section is a bit small right now, just being The Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit, The Silmarillion and half a dozen books of Professor Tolkien's notes

In the Military-techno thriller catagory.... Tom Clancy's books of course all of them . Dale Brown's series of books starting with Flight of the Old Dog, Chooser's of the Slain by Cobb and some books by Coontz and Bond.

In non-fiction...I have a lot of naval history books, several Janes Fighting ships and Janes warship and aircraft recognition guides, half a dozen books on Palientology, including Dr. Bakker's book of very interesting and entertaining theries, a few astronomy books, and a handful of art books.

I also have a small collection of comic's and manga... a few of the old 1977 star wars comic's (Yes I have No.1) some of the newer star wars comic's, Empires End for example, for manga's I have Evangelion manga No.2, Nausicaa and the Valley of the Wind Perfict Collection's 1-4 (that's all of them ) and a few of the smaller Nausicaa manga's that I got before I got ahold of the perfect collection.

I am also very happy to say that I have read almost every single book I own

well uh...my family owns well over 1000 books, i haven't read them all, but i'm planning on it

most of 'em are detective mysteries and science fiction books.

[pcmacman]

My shelves have about 100-150 books on them. I've read most of them.

Theres more than half a shelf devoted to shakespear's plays. The rest of that shelf is highschool reading, but good books nonetheless. Most of the rest of my shelves contain old books, but many are intersesting enough to fall asleep reading.

In my "to be read" pile:

LOTR: The Return of The King
Steven Hawking: The Universe in a Nutshell
A book of various Hawking essays
Chaos (dont remember the author)
The Scenographic Imagination (for theatre set design)
A Remarkable Medicine has been overlooked (i started reading it but forgot about it and never finished)

Chaos (dont remember the author)

Judging by the rest of the titles, I'd say the author is James Gleick. I have the same book.

I should explain my rather large unread book pile...
Near me are two bookstores that sell used and production overrun books. They're both great stores, and they sell books quite inexpensively. I tend to hit them on a regular basis. To top it off, a friend of mine had a garage sale a little while back, where he sold off most of his books (He was moving from a house to a rather small apartment.) Any scifi and fantasy he didn't sell, I got. read some of them, but most have taken a back seat to whatever interests me at the moment.

Most of the non-fiction is reference material for my hobbies (especially medieval history), so I don't tend to read them through. I page through them to find what I need as I need it.

I have no idea how many books I have. Several boxes of them in storage because I'm in a small place. Two bookcases loaded from top to bottom. And a couple of shelves. Stacks of books under chairs, etc. (I'm looking for a larger place to live and house my books.) Beside my desk there's a stack about cars, of all things. The top one is Mustang Restoration Handbook. (Don't ask, it's a book!) Those are going to storage.

I bought some beautiful books from Easton Press. Classics, and read them as they came in. My favorites from there were the Signed First Edition Science Fiction novels. I have a few of those.

I left the Easton Press when I discovered The Folio Society. I renew my membership each year and they send free books for that. They have really well-made beautiful books that are made to be passed down to future generations.

Besides hitting the library now and again (which I don't do as often since I've taken up computers!), I also go up the street to a Goodwill Store and check out their books. There's also a thrift shop close by that has a large book section. When I'm finished with the books from those places I usually take them back to them. There's a rare book store close by, as well. Good place to browse.

I just finished reading The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco. And a new one by Nicholas Sparks - A Bend in the Road. The Franchise Affair by Josephine Tey. Ayn Rand: A Sense of Place by Michael Paxton. Atlas Shrugged is always close by, I like to pick it up and just read.

Waiting to be read are:

Jackdaws by Ken Follet
What is Life? by Erwin Schrodinger
If This Is a Man by Primo Levi

Also, I have books by Richard Hatch and William Shatner. And Shakespeare.

[Kai]

ok not gonna give the full list here! lol got about 250 books.. (had some losses in various moves I was upto about 800)

the highllights tho are

complete Necroscope series
the book of Alien
all the Terran Trade Authority books (details here - TTA )
a copy of the Necronomicon
nearly all the HP Lovecraft stories in print

...
the list goes on... mostly in SF and Horror....

I've got an entire room dedicated to being my library with shelves covering almost every wall ... and my soon-to-be father-in-law is making another huge bookcase for a wedding gift!

I've got too many books to count and they're in too many genres to list, but I can list some of my favorite authors. These are the folks who have entire shelves dedicated to them at my place.

Harlan Ellison -- Horror, Science Fiction, Social commentary
Clive Barker -- Horror, stageplays, screenplays
Ellis Cose -- Social Commentary
Amiri Baraka -- Beat Poetry
... And an entire wall devoted to religious studies -- Taoism, Buddhism, Islam, Christianity, Jewish, modern religions and cults, etc.

There's more, but that's the stuff I read most of the time. (Overall, I'd estimate the library to be somewhere between 800 and 1,200 strong.)

God, I love books!!!