Books

I love books. I love reading and holding books and seeing them stacked neatly in my library (or anyone's library for that matter). I love books so much, in fact, that I thought once about switching careers and becoming a librarian. But then I discovered that librarian-ism really isn't about books as much as it's about keeping things in order, and I would end up being one of those cranky librarians who was always upset because someone put the book they were browsing in the wrong place.

In her comment last week, Betty asked how many books have I read, 1000? Well, that got me to thinking because I have absolutely no idea. I know that I have over 300 books that I want to buy someday and read, and about 100 already bought and waiting impatiently to be read. There are approximately 600 books in our library right now. About 2/3 of those are "mine" though others have read them, but I was the one who bought them or read them first. So, that's 400.

I figure that I read probably 10 books for every literature class I took. If you include undergraduate and graduate classes, then there were probably 20 classes, or 200 books, some of which may have been repeats, and some are sitting in my library, so I'll be conservative and say 150 books read for study. That brings the total to approximately 550.

When I was taking my PhD comps in English, I had to read 200 books and articles, approximately half were books, and approximately half of those were new, so we'll say 50 extras there. The total is now at 600.

I've read plenty of books in my life that I don't still own, or borrowed from the library or friends. We'll put that total at around 5 books a year for my adult life, 15 years, which is another 75 books, and makes the new total around 675.

This number does not include (and won't for reasons I'll get to in a minute) academic or research books I've read as part of my education PhD. I think I'm comfortable with saying that in my adult life I've read approximately 700 books.

I don't want to count things I read in high school or before simply because the books weren't as "big" and I wouldn't be able to remember most of them now anyway. I read ALL the time when I was growing up. I had a book that I carried to class with me so that I would have something to keep me going when I was finished with class work. I loved and read almost every single Sweet Valley High installment up until I was a junior in high school. I was a huge fan of Judy Bloom and devoured anything she wrote.

I also don't want to count things I've read as part of my PhD in education becasue I would never pick those books up and read them for anything other than work--and I don't count reading done at work in the same category as reading done for pleasure.

Which brings me to the second part of Betty's question. I find time to read because it's how I relax. I do not watch TV except for 1 show per week. Right now I try to catch a few college football games, but other than that, my tv viewing is pretty limited. I think I read for the same reasons that a lot of people watch tv--to relax, escape the realities of my life, and get some mental stimulation that doesn't require super-heavy analysis.

I am surprised many days that I survived so long as a literature student. Not that I don't love literature, because I do, but because it required me to WORK while reading and took away my reading for pleasure time...

And right now I would rather be at home finishing the last 20 pages of the book I started last weekend and read straight all day Saturday!