glaucon | Someone Memed Me So...

1. Total number of books I’ve owned

well, currently I have a set of 5 block-and-board shelves that are 8 feet long. figuring a bit less than an average thickness of 1 inch per book, and fudging into account the fact that 2 of the 5 hold thinner-than-average paperbacks that are double stacked, I'm guessing I have about 750 in the living room. four shorter shelves of mostly reference and text books in the study adds approximately another 75, and the tall but narrow 8 shelf Ikea unit next to the bed contains probably 125. and I'll fudge in another 200 for cookbooks in the kitchen, books out on loan, and my shelf of left-behinds in my old room at my mom's house in Pennsylvania. this gives a total of 1150 currently owned.

but the question is in the present perfect tense, which implies that it's asking how many I've ever owned...so...

I won't count ones that I bought in an airport or train station and only owned for a few hours while in transit, or the dozen or more boxes of old crappola that my mom gave me to sell when I was in college, or ones that I bought to give as gifts. I technically owned them for a few hours or a few days, but I don't think that counts.

I will count books that I owned as a kid (Fox in Socks, Hardy Boys and such) and as an adolescent (Piers Anthony, Black Stallion and such, god help me) which I later sold, gave away, or burned. my best guess at this total comes to about 500.

I will also count books that I have sold, given away, lost, or had stolen in my adult and college life, including all of my college text books, chapbooks, and duplicate copies or different editions. this comes to around 400, with about a quarter of that representing the two boxes that got lost in the move to Seattle.

so...just under 2000.

2. Last book I bought

V by Pynchon and something else I don't remember at Powell's in Portland a few weeks ago.

3. Last book I read

Les Miserables. it's a surprisingly quick and interesting read.

4. Five (to ten) books/literary works of some sort that mean a lot to me:

the six original Dune books
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
Finnegans Wake
Lord of the Rings
Moby Dick
A Moveable Feast
The Mysteries of Pittsburgh
The Name of the Rose
The Oxford Classical Dictionary
The White Goddess

5. Five people to post answers to these questions in their own journals: