Books, I gots books...
I have been collecting books for decades, but it has only been recently that I started to write down what I had. That started after I joined Goodreads several years ago. The cataloging began in earnest in January, and right now I am up to almost 400 titles. I am concentrating on my history collection, and haven't got to the rest of the non-fiction. Total numbers with all other categories? My best guess is about 1,400, and much of that is fiction.
The embarrassing part is that of the almost 400 titles in the list thus far, I have only read about 110 of them. I won't give a book a rating if I haven't read it. Of the unlisted part of my collection, I know that I have read most if not all of the fiction. For whatever reason, I have not been able to read anything fictitious recently.
For years I would randomly collect books from book stores, especially the bargain bin; used book stores; library sales; yard sales, book clubs and others. That doesn't include borrowing and returning from the local libraries. At the same time, I have purged books whenever I have moved, most notably in 2003 when I divorced and sold my house. At that time I gave ten boxes of books to the local library for their book sale. I did more over my next two moves.
To what end? Curiousity. Acquistiveness. Boredom. I cut back on reading when I returned to college two years ago. Now I want to pare down what I have and read the essential stuff. I need to systematically read what I have, and that is one of the reasons that I use Goodreads. To that end, I have been working on a reading program in several categories...ancient history, medieval history, early modern period, World War I, World War II and the post-war world. While taking the relevant college courses, I made up lists for the American Civil War, the American Revolution, and 19th century Europe.
Once again, to what end? I love history. It's the story of our past, and is better than fiction. You have to know where you're coming form to know where you're going. I could also throw in that overused and misunderstood quote from Santayana, but I won't.
The embarrassing part is that of the almost 400 titles in the list thus far, I have only read about 110 of them. I won't give a book a rating if I haven't read it. Of the unlisted part of my collection, I know that I have read most if not all of the fiction. For whatever reason, I have not been able to read anything fictitious recently.
For years I would randomly collect books from book stores, especially the bargain bin; used book stores; library sales; yard sales, book clubs and others. That doesn't include borrowing and returning from the local libraries. At the same time, I have purged books whenever I have moved, most notably in 2003 when I divorced and sold my house. At that time I gave ten boxes of books to the local library for their book sale. I did more over my next two moves.
To what end? Curiousity. Acquistiveness. Boredom. I cut back on reading when I returned to college two years ago. Now I want to pare down what I have and read the essential stuff. I need to systematically read what I have, and that is one of the reasons that I use Goodreads. To that end, I have been working on a reading program in several categories...ancient history, medieval history, early modern period, World War I, World War II and the post-war world. While taking the relevant college courses, I made up lists for the American Civil War, the American Revolution, and 19th century Europe.
Once again, to what end? I love history. It's the story of our past, and is better than fiction. You have to know where you're coming form to know where you're going. I could also throw in that overused and misunderstood quote from Santayana, but I won't.