What proportion of the books you own have you read?

[LimaDelta]

I seem to acquire books faster than I read them, either buying of having them passed on by my father mainly. I enjoy having a choice of what to read next from our bookshelves, but it does make me think I will never get to the end of them all. No bad thing I suppose.

[Super Sonic]

Haven't bought any for a while. Last new book I bought was W Gibson's 'Agency', and the last book I bought was 'Flowers for Algernon'. I've been looking for other authors, my favourites are Iain M Banks, William Gibson, Alaister Reynolds, I've tried Neil Stephenson and Adrian Tchaikovsky and they're ok but not up to Banks Or Gibson standards, but that is another thread.
ETA, I do read nonfiction sometimes, and I've had a few goes at Brian Greene's 'The Fabric of the Cosmos' but have only managed to get a quarter of the way through.

Edited by Super Sonic on Thursday 5th January 20:07

[Zarco]

I hate running out of things to read, so I always have a few waiting for me.

[droopsnoot]

I've got a "to read" pile of about 30 books, but have read a lot more and kept them "just in case". Most of my books come from car boot sales and other cheap sources, so I'm reading out of sequence and my thought is to keep "series" books so that, at some point, perhaps when no new books are being written, I can re-read them in the correct order.

[ZedLeg]

I voted most of them as I've been ste with reading over the last couple of years so my backlog is building up. I tend to give away a lot of books though so my collection at home isn't that big.

[Tango13]

I voted 'all of them'

I have hundreds of books but there's only 3 that I haven't yet read so as a percentage an insignificant amount

[p1doc]

normally have a chest full of books but still cannot find anything to read lol

[mac96]

At the moment 'most of them' but I currently have boxes of books inherited from my Dad. Of course these were not my choice, but I need to decide which to get rid of and which to keep and read- then I will be back to my normal state of 'all of them'.

[Hoofy]

I've got an addiction.

Why isn't there a "Couldn't possibly say." option?

[Cotty]

I only have one sitting on my Kindle that i have not read. Blood Crows by Simon Scarrow

[jimmyjimjim]

Tango13 said:

I voted 'all of them'

I have hundreds of books but there's only 3 that I haven't yet read so as a percentage an insignificant amount

I've 4 that I've not read, out of many hundred.

[CopperBolt]

[jimwilli]

Near enough all. Maybe a few doubles from when I've bought a job lot or some fiction novels which I haven't fancied.

How does everyone get rid of them more importantly ?

[droopsnoot]

mac96 said:

At the moment 'most of them' but I currently have boxes of books inherited from my Dad. Of course these were not my choice, but I need to decide which to get rid of and which to keep and read- then I will be back to my normal state of 'all of them'.

I have a similar situation. Because we both had / have similar reading tastes, my first job - and it is still ongoing, mainly because I haven't been putting much effort into it - is to sort them by author and weed out the duplicates and get rid of those.

jimwilli said:

How does everyone get rid of them more importantly ?

I'm in a few Facebook "reuse, recycle" groups and offer them on there (and sometimes get books that way too), but increasingly I'm just taking them to charity shops. My local Co-op has a secondhand books stall run by a charity, so I take some there as well.

[LimaDelta]

jimwilli said:

How does everyone get rid of them more importantly ?

I don't. I'd say 90% of mine are non-fiction/reference or classics, i.e. eminently re-readable. I don't do pop-literature or airport books (the wife does however), but she has a strange habit of tearing out the pages as she reads - don't ask!.

[LimaDelta]

CheesecakeRunner said:

LimaDelta said:

airport books (the wife does however), but she has a strange habit of tearing out the pages as she reads - don't ask!.

That is utterly bizarre! Why destroy something others could gain enjoyment out of?

And whilst no offence intended to you or your wife, I find intentionally damaging or destroying books, any books, quite offensive, especially when there are still people in this world who are forbidden from reading anything.

She won't mind me saying she's wired differently to most. It just ends up by one of the woodburners. Anyway, we're talking trashy paperbacks here, not first edition copies of Dickens or Defoe.

[Randy Winkman]

I've read about 98% of the fiction that I've bought and the other 2% will get read soon. Though it's probably a question of "read one, buy one" so there's always a handful on the shelf waiting.

Of the pages in the non-fiction books I've got, I've read or had a good look at probably about 25%. It could well be much less. Loads of them have just been flicked through a couple of times then put in one of the 5 bookcases.

[Caddyshack]

Whilst this is a book thread I urge people to look up the "let them stare’ thread as the two books are brilliant and the Pistonheader that wrote them gives the money to charity, he does a lot of good work.

It is a book about a long life of supercar ownership btw.

[James6112]

When bored during covid.. I stumbled across the Penguin Clothbound Classics collection. 30 of the classics, was sold out, but I registered interest.
A month or do later it was back in, so I bought.
Just finished the last one!