I’m curious, approximately how many books do you own? If you don’t know the exact number then give me your best guess (electronic books don’t count). Including Bibles I have just under 500.
B”H
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No idea, I’m guessing maybe 200 or so. I’d go count them but my family is all asleep.
Around 1000…a lot of pop-theology junk that I’ve been gifted, but probably 500-600 good ones.
I’m working on entering my books into LibraryThing.com. So far I have 367. I’d imagine it’s close to 400.
If you own junk books, you should sell them! 400-500 books could get you a lot of cash. Trade ‘em in for good books!
Between 4000 and 5000.
3.5-4000
A little under 500 (not counting crappy ones and electronic books) although it may have gone over 500 this last Christmas. Not bad for about 5-6 years of book buying and reading. : ) It’s amazing to think that before I became a Christian and even before I read the Bible I didn’t read at nor did I ever want to.
Bryan L
~250
It’s doubled in the last year or so. Thanks seminary. :D
Hmmm, according to LibraryThing I have 475 but I know that I haven’t put everything onto LibraryThing, so perhaps 550-600?
Of course that doesn’t match the number of books I’ve READ!! Now that would take some working out and I still don’t think that I’d even come close!! ;-)
1500-2000
About 100.
Jeff
798, according to LibraryThing. (You really should pop your books onto LibraryThing, Nick.) That counts pretty much physical books, though some Logos editions are in the mix. It’s a reminder that I need to procure two more books to hit 800.
(Yes, I’ve read most of them)
About 1400-1500. I should have had more but have given away over 60-80 books to friends and family members.
Around 10k I reckon.
First things first… I demand that everyone who owns more than 1000 books send me at least 3 books from your library!
Nathan: A respectable number.
Ranger: I’m happy to say that the majority of my books are ones that I would consider good. Most of the fluff is packed away in boxes (something like 60-80 books).
Patrick: I entered as many as I could in Librarything before they cut me off. I won’t pay for the lifetime subscription or whatever it is. I just keep track in an MS Word document.
John: Good Lord! See my initial statement at the top of this comment! (BTW, since you’ve sent me two of your articles you only have to give me 2 books from your library instead of 3).
Steph: Again, good Lord! Since you know Casey’s writings so well I would expect you to send me all the Casey books you own!
Bryan L: We appear to be on about the same pace which surprises me since I thought you bought like at least 400 books last year!
Bryan: Perhaps I should go to seminary so I can have an excuse to buy more books!
Sam: Are you saying you’ve read more or less than that? If more then wow!
Daniel: Yeah, you’re in the “have to send books to Nick” club! We’ll call CD I/1 an appetizer.
Jeff: Aren’t most of those 100 commentaries? I don’t know how you do it. I think everyone who owns over a thousand books should send one to you as well.
Rick: Actually I do have some catalogued here but the problem is that it only allows you to do 200 for free. Esteban Vázquez shared a trick with me to get more than that but they caught on pretty quickly and now I can add no more. Sadly I haven’t read most of mine, probably not quite half.
Celucien: Another member of the “send books to Nick” club. I’ve given away some books this past year as well (and had one lost that I loaned out!).
Josh: That’s obscene! The number is doubled for you, you have to send me 6 books from your library! I wonder, have you fashioned your furniture out of all the books lying around your home?
Doubt it! They were all presents from him with written notes inside the cover.
Nick, about 20 are commentaries.
There should be equality.
Jeff
If you cut out two movies, you’ve got your $20 for a lifetime LibraryThing subscription. Don’t get any soda or popcorn, and you can probably do it with skipping one movie. For the awesomeness of LibraryThing? Seems like a good deal to me. But then again, I couldn’t tell you what the last movie I saw in a theater was.
Nick, sorry for the late entry. In my office I have at least 350 books. In the garage I have at least close to another 100 books.
Sadly I haven’t read most of mine, probably not quite half.
If you don’t read them within a year you might as well give them away.
Jeff
Rick: I just can’t see paying for something like that. As I see it, Librarything doesn’t offer me anything special. I can catalogue my books in a Word document and have access to it at all times (online and off). Plus I record them like a bibliography so when writing bibliographies (or footnotes) I just have to copy and paste.
Robert: We appear to be neck and neck. I wish I had an office; right now I work out of my bedroom and things like the bed and television as well as the dresser take up valuable space that would be better suited for bookshelves.
Jeff: Nonsense I say! A lot of my books are reference books that I’ll never read from cover to cover (I own like 25-30 dictionaries/encyclopedias/lexicons). And those books that I plan to read straight through usually get referenced via the index before I get around to it.
Nick, if you do want to catalog your books on line use Google it’s free. Librarything has a limit, I think it is 100 or maybe 200 books then you have to pay. Just go to Google Books, make sure that you are signed in with your Google account and look at the top right corner there should be an entry that says “My library”.
To add books to your library just do a search on your books, once you find it there is an option that says “Add to my library” Select that and you are on your way to cataloging your books.
Robert: Thanks for the advice. I’ll check it out and see if it’s something I’d like to do.
Around 750 or so. The majority of them are here in Canada, though I left about five boxes in the US.
I’ve read about a third of them. I’ve read the preface & introductions of nearly all of them. And I’ve read at least a chapter or two in about half of them.
~300
I would have no way of estimating. Two libraries in three rooms, an attic, and the garage right now. Once I finish work on my first floor in my house with the built in shelves this spring it will make better sense. Although I have given away at least 100.
Nick: I recently inherited a large number of books from a deceased relative. Most of them were classic works of fiction (I received a first edition Nabakov) or books of history. And while they are not furniture (yet) they are boxed up with no place to go. It’ll be that way until the end of the semester.
Drew: Well I’m only a state over so shipping another hundred to me should be of minimal cost. ;)
Josh: I see. My condolences…
500? Rookie. ;-)
295 on the nose. About 200-250 of which are related to biblical studies.
The rest are books on finance, parenting, fiction, and travel.
Whoops, add 20 to that (my daughter’s little collection).
Esteban: Yeah, well, we don’t all get to inherit libraries from former pastors. ;)
Michael: If we’re including the kids’ books then add another 200 from my daughter’s library.
200?! WOW!
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Hey, I’m going to Half Price Books this week. Please pray that I can find Calvin’s Institutes or anything else that would be helpful.
Jeff
Jeff: Will do. I wish we had Half Price Books in NJ!!! BTW, you might want to try your hand in my upcoming Calvin contest.
Thank you and I’ll be watching.
Jeff
roughly 450
Mike: Sorry, I missed your comment. I’ve read the tables of contents and bibliographies in all the books I own.
David: Sorry, I glanced over your count as well. Thanks for sharing.
Michael: Yeah, I know! When she was born we started getting all these Dr. Seuss, Disney, and Sesame Street books in the mail. And now that she’s in school I get her a bunch of books whenever the book fair or Scholastic catalogue rolls around.
Jeff: I’d wish you luck but I don’t believe in it. I’ll say this though, may God show you favor.
Brian: We’re pretty close.
Nick, I live about 100 yards from a Half-Price books. My wife and I regularly take evening walks to nearby restaurants and stop in (she can’t stand it when I go there). Half-Price requires high frequency visiting to be valuable, since most times (8 out of 10) you leave empty handed. The reason for this is their prices are not exactly “half”. That’s a recent development I’ve noticed. They are tending to charge more nowadays for notable authors. For instance, they are charging $20 for Fee’s “God’s Empowering Presence” (cf Amazon @26 dollars). Don’t get me wrong, I’m very grateful to shop there and for their excellent deals when I find them (eg. the NET Bible G/E Diglot @9 dollars; cf Bible.org @70) but it requires frequent visitation, best done before the weekend. I have purchased about 30-40 books in my collection from Half-Price. But they are catching on to the value, especially in Biblical studies publications.
Michael: If you ever come across another NET/NA27 Diglot at such a low cost please pick it up for me and I’ll send you the money!!! That’s unbelievable!
I wonder if the practice of your local Half Price Books is the same in them all. My buddy Bryan L is constantly talking about all the great deals he gets there, but he lives in Texas and I figure since God has forsaken that state then maybe at least he left some cheap books as a sign that his grace endures forever. ;)
Sure you bet. I’ll keep an eye out.
Michael: Much appreciated!
Nick:
Forsaken?!! Texas is God’s country!!! ; )
I hear from one of my friends in Dallas that the Half Price in Dallas is a bit different than the ones where I live. Apparently they charge higher prices over there. It’s probably because it’s so huge and well known and they know they can get the higher price. Also they are probably doing half off the retail price which Amazon does like 30% off of.
That being said I find absolutely great deals there all the time (I got six books from them in the last three days) on used books and new overstock books. The other day I saw a ‘like new’ copy of Richard Hays “Moral Vision of the New Testament” for $10 which I almost picked up because my current copy looks all jacked up now and it was such a great price. Once I stumbled across practically the whole NT series of the Word Biblical Commentaries. They had them all at $20 each. I picked up a bunch of them but I wish I would have gotten more (like Lincoln on Ephesians).
Michael’s right the value in it is going so often because they get new books all the time and they put many good ones on clearance out of nowhere. Plus they have additional sales of like 20 to 30 percent off. I go at least once a week to the one near my place.
Ok I’m done gushing over them now : )
Bryan L
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