How many books have you read?

Far too many to count... Like Jody, I started reading at an early age (I was self-taught, and went to elementary school already knowing how to read), and for most of my life I was a voracious reader. Unfortunately, I must admit that my reading rate has slowed down considerably in the past couple of years or so, probably due to an accumulation of stress. An interesting fact about me, anyway, is that nowadays I'd rather read nonfiction than fiction.

I can read a 300 page book on one day ... I've done it many times, even last week. But I could not do that every day ... it wouldn't give me any time to reflect on what I've read.

BaldJean wrote: Jimbo wrote: ^ You read three books a week? That's pretty impressive. quite normal.. I usually read a book a day. it depends on size and difficulty though; there are books I need 2 or 3 days for. but a 300 page novel usually is only fodder for one day. when you have learned to read a page in half a minute or even less it is quite easy

I try not to do that with books - or with music, as a matter of fact. I find that it takes the magic out of it ... making literature/art/music a routine thing.

I read more than 100 books, for sure. I'm now reading Mikhaïl Boulgakov's Le Maître et Marguerite, I don't know what it's called in English though. It's excellent.

^ You read three books a week? That's pretty impressive.

I aim to read a book every 2 weeks. Only problem is that the regular arrival of music magazines generally  slows my book reading down.

Hundreds - more probably well over a thousand on almost any topic imaginable!

Dean wrote: About 20 years ago my bookcases were full and I had no more room for new books so I took most of them down to the secondhand bookstore, just keeping back the Dune trillogy, all the John Sladek novels and Ian Hunter's Diary Of A Rock and Roll Star. The bookstore took over 200 books off my hands that day.   My bookcases are now full again.

Yeah, I could never part with the Dune trilogy. I mean some of those Ben Gesserit/princess Irulam quotes at the beginning of each chapter are more succinct and solid than a base of a pillar

tamijo wrote: Jimbo wrote: Conor Fynes wrote: Considering prog takes intelligence to appreciate, I would imagine prog  fans would read more.... That's the oldest joke in the book. I think we've already established in the 4-5 years that I've been here that there's absolutely no correlation between intelligence and progressive rock.   Not to mention no relation between intelligence and how many Book's you read. That would suggest people in the Bronce Age , had less intelligence than any teen today, wich is not the case. Most likely its the opposite.

Please define: "intelligence".

BaldJean wrote: there are several authors we have the complete works of, mostly by being complete editions; it is the easiest way. examples are Goethe, Shakespeare, Edgar Allan Poe or E.T.A. Hoffmann (a writer of fantasy and horror stories and novels of the romantic era. he was also a caricaturist and composer; a true multi-talent. I highly recommend his novel "Die Elixiere des Teufels", "The Elixirs of the Devil". many horror stories or novels draw on the concept of the doppelganger, "The Elixir of the Devils" is the only novel I know of where a person has TWO doppelgangers).

Funny that you mention Hoffmann. I just re-read "The Sandman", which is by far the scariest story I know. (OK, perhaps together with Poe's "Ligeia"...) For those of you who are not aware of it, there are several excellent English translations! Last year, I greatly enjoyed Hoffmann's novel KATER MUERR (which has been translated as TOMCAT MUERR or somesuch, by Anthea Bell, who also translates the Asterix series into English). Magnificent stuff - no wonder it inspired Schumann so much.

I could not possibly tell you how many books I've read. When I was a child I read at least five a week. Now I'm 49, and the habit has never gone away. My favourite novelists are Rabelais, Proust, Georges Perec, Cervantes, Charles Dickens, Lewis Carroll, James Joyce, Flann O'Brien, Vladimir Nabokov, Saul Bellow, Geerten Meijsing, Murasaki Shikibu, Nagai Kafu and Junichiro Tanizaki. Favourite poets: Su Dongpo, Basho, Buson, W.H. Auden and Ted Hughes -- in addition to a fair number of classics by Dutch, English and German poets...

Edited by fuxi - August 13 2009 at 03:41