Oh, my, god, Becky! Look at her books! I have officially logged my 1,000th book this week and I find that super exciting!
This seems like both a large and small number – large in the sense that 1,000 as a number is pretty large, especially if you’re thinking in terms of a collection of something. Small in that, when I look at all my books (on my 5 shelves) there doesn’t appear to be THAT MANY. Yes, it’s clear when you enter my apartment that I have A LOT of books, but I feel like 1,000 should be an overwhelming amount. But this just means I HAVE ROOM FOR MORE BOOKS! I do have to remind myself that 129 of my books are e-books, so obviously they take up a lot less space.
For this momentous occasion, I did a little fact finding about my book buying and reading habits. *Note: these numbers are estimates*
I started using LibraryThing to catalog my books in 2010, so I added a ton of them at once. I actually added about 460 books in 2010, 250 of them between February and March, which is when I was busy just entering all the books I owned. I figure the other 210 that I added that year were newer additions to my library. 2011 was when I started keeping a log of all the books I read in a year.
2011 – about 130 books added – read 105
2012 – about 128 books added – read 103
2013 – about 160 books added – read 103
2014 – so far this year I’ve added 114 and read 34 (not counting any from May)
Pretty sure this year will be the highest number of books added to my collection, considering we’re almost halfway through. Hopefully, I can catch up with my reading and stay on track!
At this rate…well I’ll be lucky to break even between reading and buying. My TBR pile of 400-something isn’t likely to change much at this point. But as I mentioned before, I fully embrace my book hoarding habits and I enjoy building my own personal library. I’ll never run out of books to read!
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What are your buying vs. reading habits? Does anyone else track their library like I do?
Milliebot Reads 
I read everything I buy, almost right away. Huge unread piles make me uncomfortable, because I feel like they’re pressing on my conscience and I must read! I also don’t buy random books I come across – I make sure they’re recommended, think on it, etc. I’d never walked into a store and picked up something I’ve never heard of. And I do track my library – I have the Tumblr blog I use as a “catalogue.” That’s only books acquired recently though – I never put in everything I have. Now I’m inspired to count how many books I have!!! Thanks for the idea. I never did count. It’s Nowhere near 1,000 though!
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I’m not sure what initially motivated me to start logging my collection. I think it was because I discovered I had a couple duplicates. I feel like I’ve always owned more books than I’ve read. I love walking into a bookstore and just buying whatever piques my interest. But the downside is over 400 books on my tbr pile. So I definitely see the merits of your method! At this point, I’ve accepted that I may never catch up with reading what I own, and while that’s sad, it’s not enough to make me stop buying books until I’ve read all I own. So I just go with it. But I love cataloging my books now. If I have even a little thought that I might already own a book, I can easily search what I have to avoid buying another copy.
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