How many books have you read?

How many books have I read? Well over a thousand. Maybe two thousand. Maybe more. I didn't count.

Note: My BA is in literature.

LOL from your postings on this website fifty books in your lifetime seems about right.

I'd be interested to hear about your favorite authors and novels.

I guesstimate I've read between 75 and 100. I have been so crushed with work and such that I haven't read much for pleasure (professional reading mostly for the past decade), but that will change soon.

You're the first person I've met that has majored in Literature. Who is your favorite author. One of mine is Simon Winchester, because he does his research very well before he writes about interesting personalities.

One of the required reading in high school was Les Miserables. That's been one of my favorites all this time. I took my sister and niece to see Les Miz when we were in Washington DC on vacation many years ago, and my niece was so taken with that show that after our return home, she started a collection about that show. When it played in San Francisco, I treated my son and his wife, my wife and sister-in-law to see the show.

In what period of time?

I've sold well over 5000 books in anticipation of a couple of moves. I've donated another two or three thousand. There are probably more than two thousand books in the house right now. I've read all but maybe 200 of those nine to ten thousand. Then there are library books. For decades, I read 5 - 10 library books a week. Then there are books I read while I'm at other people's houses. I read read read a lot.

Oh Boida, I'm sure you've read over 2000.

Just doing a quick estimate, for at least 20 years I read at least a book a week, let's just say 50 a year. There's a 1000 just there. Since then I've gone through spates of reading. Maybe another 500 that way.

I wish that was doubled.

For many years I would have said that Dostoevsky was my favorite writer. And I still believe that the Brothers Karamozov is a brilliant work. However, I started rereading Crime and Punishment. It's a bit overwrought for my current taste.

Of American authors, my favorite is Faulkner. Not the most accessible of writers, but brilliant and occasionally profound. My favorite work of his is Light in August.

Of more recent American writers, I like Doctorow. The man could write.

A novel that stands out in my mind is The Metamorphosis by Kafka. I read it in college and thought it was strange, but good. I read it again about ten years later and thought it was sad. I read it again maybe ten years later. It was painfully sad. Heart- and gut-wrenching. And IMO brilliant.

One of the best short stories I ever read is Bartleby the Scribner by Herman Melville. Major league good. I was less a fan of Melville's longer works.

I'm sure more will come to me. I gotta cogitate.

Chai, you're right. I often used to read more than a book a week. I'm good at words, not math. What can I tell ya?

I think you're like our son who has one bedroom full of books. He's also the supervisor at the University of Texas reference library in Austin. He's in heaven.

I have read lots of books, but there were times I did so without pause and times nothing at all. I would not try to guess. Of Faulkner's books, I too prefer Light in August. One day my favorite author is Joyce or Miller; another it is Dickens or Goethe. But it can then be Phillip Wylie or Ray Bradbury. It all depends on my mental state at the time.

Classic.

While prepping some food, I was thinking about my reading from ages 7 through 19.

I am quite sure, no joking, that books kept me from killing myself, someone else, or both.

There were many times when they were all I had, and I'm so grateful for them.

Oh my goodness. How much we have in common! Bartleby the Scrivener was my favorite short story for years. I also love The Metamorphosis (taught it the last two years).

I also adored Melville's Moby Dick...

Hardy's Far From the Madding Crowd (formulaic, I admit, but lovely to me) and DH Lawrence's Sons and Lovers gave me more joy just rolling through the prose than good food or a day in the sun.

I fell into a self-indulgent period when I just ate up Anne Tyler. She might be an acquired taste - not classic or even cerebral,...just fun. Quirky characters and outrageous plots, but i loved them and the hell with convention sometimes, eh?

Who was your guilty pleasure?

[I also indulged in a John Irving period. (Thinking about a dirty re-read of Tyler and Irving...)]

Just move from a townhouse with floors to ceilings home made bookshelves but was able to donate a large numbers of those books thanks to my nook that now hold 992 books and have room for many more books.

Of course over the years I lost books first from my first wife throwing out my books including a hundred and fifty years old bound engineering magazines and then twenty years later having hurricane Andrew ripping apart my home.

What you call mental state, I assume to mean our mood. I know we all have our mood changes, and often wonder what precipitates our mood. I feel pretty good most of the time, but I also have bouts of what can be described as depression. I wonder if this is common.

I was not referring to states of depression or such. It's more like ordering from a restaurant. You would not want porterhouse or lobster every time.

There are only two kinds of people Ive found
1Those that usually always feel good except sometimes something hppens to make them feel bad. They get through it and then feel good agin
2There are those who usually always feel bad till, every so often, something makes them feel good, then they get through that and get back to feeling bad again.

I've been a book editor since 1968. In order to edit a book, you gotta read it. I also occasionally proofread books. Do I have to tell ya that if you're proofreading, you gotta read?

I'm gonna have to bump up my number.

Does it count for more when you have read one several times?

Yes. I have learned that rereading a book brings out nuances not recognized during the first reading.

I've read and loved both those. At one time, I said to Dys "I prefer not to". He definitely knew the reference.

I also read Moby Dick. I must not have had the right frame of mind.