How many books have you read in your life?

[Turtle]

The question is a bit flip, but you know what to do...the math. :eek_big:

[Jay-qu]

Ive gone conservative and voted under 100. Interesting question, its a hard one to try and grasp - and I only have to count back 13 years!

[pgrmdave]

Hmmm...What books count? If we count children's books (like Dr. Suess) then I'm sure I'm well over 1000.

[infamous]

Hmmm...What books count? If we count children's books (like Dr. Suess) then I'm sure I'm well over 1000.

Exactly.......maybe we should ask for a more focused count such as; How many science books have you read or some other field of interest. I couldn't even begin to give an accurate answer to this poll unless we limit the scope of subject matter.....................Infy

[InfiniteNow]

Either way, how the heck am I supposed to remember? I'm lucky I remember what I had for breakfast! :eek_big:

 

 

:hihi:

[Turtle]

Good questions all. ;)

Here's some answers. Yes Dr. Seuss counts. All books count.

Yes, the question is meant to be hard.

We are supposed the heck to remember by going back in our memory and tabulating what we find there. The apparent circularlity is part of what makes this hard.

The only change I may have made is expanding the choices above the count I used.

No, I can't remeber, yet, how many books I have read. :eek_big: (let alone remeber how to type remmber. :hihi: )

[infamous]

OK......I'll give you a tentative count with the understanding that I may amend it after thoughtful consideration and much effort devoted to recall. Counting the books which I have in my library which total 278 in all, I need to estimate and add to that the ones solicited from friends and also the public library. I would estimate that figure at least twice what I currently possess myself. Figuring 278 plus 556 generates 834. Taking into account my age which is 64, and going all the way back through my years of education one would need to add at least another one or two hundred.

 

Current estimate to be amended as memory serves me: If not a 1000, then very close to it........................Infy

[Janus]

It has to be over 900. Several years ago, before I was forced to thin it out, just the books that I had in my own bookcases numbered well over 600.

[Racoon]

tough to say.

I just boxed up a shelf of paperback classics. I read on average a classic a week taking the bus to work and back for about 2 years.

 

Plus tons of Library books, text books, wisdom, philosophy books, biographies

 

S'funny, but I gotta' have something to read while on the john. I've gone through a hundered misc. books right there :esmoking: including Almanacs and Atlases

 

Easily a conservative 500.

[Tormod]

I read about 1 book per week on average, slightly less now that I also have to read study material. But I put in at least 30-40 books a year, so I'm well past the 1000 mark. How far beyond I have no idea...

[pgrmdave]

Well, I got rid of a lot of my books when we moved six years ago when I was in eighth grade. I kept about 1/4 of them and I got rid of about 700. Those were just my books, though. My mother ran a daycare for children out of our house for five years, and I read all the children's books she had. Since then, I've read quite a number of books, easily 2-3 hundred (my reading slowed down considerably when i got into high school and started focusing on many other things).

[ronthepon]

I've been reading ever since I learnt how to :teeth:

 

Do booklets count? They'd push me well over the K.

[pgrmdave]

Another question - if I read two novels contained within a single textbook for school, is that one book or two? How about books that are compilations of short stories? Are they many books or one book? Is the book the physical paper, or the story?

[Tormod]

Definitions...I have several Nortons but none of them contain complete novels. But they do contain complete plays...does that count...

 

I think if you're past 1K, you know it. :)

[Spiked Blood]

Between the ages 8 to 14 I read six books every week. Six was the library limit for my age or it would have been more. Those six years alone see me well passed the 1k mark, encroaching onto 2k.

[Turtle]

Another question - if I read two novels contained within a single textbook for school, is that one book or two? How about books that are compilations of short stories? Are they many books or one book? Is the book the physical paper, or the story?

 

I knew this was a tough one the second I hit Submit to enter the poll. ;) I used to read encyclopedias and how does one count that!? (interrobang :D )

By last night I boiled it down to asking myself "how many words have I read!?" (interrogbang).

I still haven't voted, but reading the replies is convincing me I have read an indeterminate amount of books beyond 901. :)

[CraigD]

This is a fun and interesting poll! :)

 

A shortcoming of its question, though, is that, to a large degree, it’s equivalent to “how old are you?” A 16-year-old who has read 100 books is clearly a more dedicated reader than a 50-year-old who has read 300, but that’s not reflected by this poll.

 

It’d be interesting to try another poll on the number of books each of us read each year.

 

Even better would be a count of words read per year, though, at least for me, this would be difficult to calculate. Although I have pretty good records of what I’ve read since about 1/1/97, and a couple of datapoints counting how many books I’ve owned from the several times I’ve donated them to libraries, I’ve not kept records on the length of each book, and find I can’t reliably distinguish novels from longer short-stories I’ve read – though it’s easier since I started reading mostly e-books around 2001 ;)