Friday, July 03, 2009

Personal Library

Since this is apparently a thing now, and because I have too much time on my hands not working, I have counted up my personal library. I have counted by volume, rather than by title. These are only the books that are currently in my room--Zeke has at least a dozen on semi-permanent loan, there are a couple dozen or so loaned farther afield, and I have at least a couple dozen (mostly literature) stored at school.

Current total: 556

Contemporary Fantasy/SF: 145
Literature/Classics: 133
Old (Pre-Tolkien) Fantasy: 40
Contemporary/Genre Fiction: 26
Philosophy: 16
History: 75
Writing/Lit. Crit.: 14
Foreign Language: 10
Irish: 13
Film: 3
Miscellaneous: 9
Psychology: 5
Mad Magazine Books: 27
Biographies: 5
Mark Twain (by and about): 35

Of these, I've read perhaps 150, maybe closer to 200.

6 comments:

Robin said...

Irish as in the language, or mythology, or what?
And why don't you have a section for mythology, anyway?
Unless you're counting that under "Old Fantasy"? Hmm.
Also, there are Mad Magazine BOOKS? Isn't that a little contradictory?

Anna Schmunk said...

My books are all in storage at my parent's house. Sometimes I wonder how many books I actually have, because I've never seen them all together at once.

Maybe I should dig them out sometime.

Ethan said...

NFJ: Irish as in Yes. Actually, my Irish language books I counted under languages; the Irish section contains some mythology, history, lit crit, general reference, etc. As for mythology itself, I have half a dozen volumes between my Irish, Scotch and Welsh mythology, all under Irish; and I have a few others in my Classics section.

Mad Magazine has a long tradition of publishing paperbacks, many of which are compilations of the best stuff from their magazine. I called them that because "Mad books" might have been taken to mean a very specific section of Psychology.

AJ: I'm going to say you should definitely dig them out sometime. ;) I've never actually seen all my books in one place; they're scattered on various bookshelves and some are under my bed in milk crates.

Anna Schmunk said...

Maybe, just maybe, it will happen in August when I'm home. I should probably just start getting all my stuff together so that when I officially "move out" of my parents house, it's all in one place.

Bruce Gee said...

What, no theology books?

No job, and reduced to counting the books one owns. Now that's depressing.

What you need is a HOBBY!

Ethan said...

Most of the theology I own at least straddles the line of philosophy--ie, CS Lewis--so I counted it in that section. The true theology I read I get from the impressive selection my dad owns (or borrows, or steals).

I have a hobby! It's reading... books... Huh, yeah, maybe another one would be good...