Got books?

What does one do on a cloudy, foggy, drippy afternoon?  Well, I was happily reading about book collections until the thought popped into my mind as to the number of books in my third floor library. Four hundred? Six hundred? Did the number really matter? Actually, no... but my curiosity got the better of me and the only way to find out the answer to that question was to count the books.

And that's what I did... breaking it down into sections so I wouldn't lose count because I didn't want to go through them twice. Not counting the books on my ever-growing shelf of books-waiting-to-be-read, I have 106 vintage children's books; 121 mostly-vintage teen books; 101 collectible magazines; 38 cookbooks; 822 adult fiction/non-fiction/reference.... for a total of 1,188.  I started a notebook listing the different totals, and I'll add to those numbers as I add books to my shelves, to avoid having to do a re-count at some point when my library-curiosity kicks in again. I have read all of the books on those shelves, and only keep the ones I want to re-read or just cannot part with. Judging by that total number, I may need another life-time just for the opportunity to do all of that re-reading.

Buying books in used-book stores, in thrift stores, and on sites like Half.com really give you the opportunity to create a library without creating havoc with your bank account. I rarely go into Barnes & Noble, but when I do, it's only to write down titles of new books and then look for them on the half-price-or-less sites.  I read too much to be buying brand new books all the time, and I like having a home library rather than depending on the town library for reading material.  Thrift stores are a treasure trove of good books because people usually donate boxes of books without even going through them to take out the current books or the older and more valuable ones. The books that I read and don't want to keep for my own library are brought to our local bookshop... they take books in trade and give store credit which I use to 'buy' books on my must-read list.  I have always loved books, loved reading, absolutely always loved bookshops and having books of my own. Plus I worked in a public library for nearly 20 years... talk about the perfect job for a book-lover.

I told my husband that I counted all of my books in the library and asked him to guess what the total was. He sat there figuring out loud... the dimensions of the library (which he knows because he helped me paint that great big room)... the number of bookshelves (he knows that because he put them all together)... and then he figured out how many books each unit could hold, leaving open spaces on each shelf... and then he said: "My guess is 1,200... give or take a few."

Well. Asking him first would have saved me a lot of counting.