How many books have you ever read in your life!

[speedwhiz]

Hi All,

I have read 601books in my life! How do I know ...
My bedroom is filled with books. the 601 does not
include those boring textbooks and resources books!

I am a self trained speed reader...I can read a 500page
book in 2days or less.

So how many books have you read?...

[metaxy99]

don't think it is a very easy thing to track.

[Nightshade]

I dont know, I read 5 books on Wedensday :lol:... I dont bother to keep track of how many I read every week its exahsting... There was a time when I tried to keep track and but I hate maths and it sort of took the pleasure out of it!:)
What exactly is speed reading I mean I can read 114 pages normal size in just under an hour, usually .

[Logos]

Hello speedwhiz, welcome to the forums. I'm proud to say I am _not_ a speed reader, more of a normal speed I guess and I have no idea how many books I've read, but have a number on the go at any given time.

[Mark F.]

Don't know how many I've read but I try to read at least a book a week.

[Jack_Aubrey]

Not sure. 200+ probably. I've read close to 20 this year alone.

[mono]

I cannot even guess how many books I have read in my life, though I know I have enjoyed reading and writing for as long as I can remember.
I can speed-read with some material, such as some easier fiction, but as for more difficult reading, such as philosophy and some poetry, I enjoy reading it more qualitatively than quantitatively, absorbing each word. This would definitely explain why a collection of poetry, or some brilliant work of philosophy or non-fiction may take me an extra amount of time to read.
Welcome to the forum, speedwhiz. :)

[Koa]

As mono said, I have no idea...
When I was younger, let's say from when I was 7 to 15, I could read up to 4-5 books per week... Now I'm 'lucky' if I read one per month...it sometimes take me long to read a book now, but most of the time I just don't start any cos I am very easily distracted and I have many distracting things to do, and most of all I'd neglect the studying if I read books for myself. Now I feel the urge to read something relaxing but I'm busy preparing an exam. So I read more than I realise, I just don't count schoolwork as 'reading', unless it's a novel/fiction.

[Beaumains]

It's really hard to say, but if I was to take a guess...around one thousand, perhaps? That seems like a rather high number for one of only sixteen years, but I suppose it is possible though.

[Fango]

601 books? yikes! how do you keep count to that? I read about 6-8 books... yea, there's that inferior feeling again! but I didn't start reading books seriously until the 10-11th grade... and I only recently finished High-School.

As for speed.. I can relate to what mono wrote.

[PeterL]

I wouldn't even guess at how many thousands of books I've read.

When I was young I was a speed reader, but that made it difficult to think about what I was reading, so I slowed my reading speed down, and sometimes I stop reading to think about what I am reading. I don't read fast, but I usually get a lot out of what I am reading.

[Koa]

I had never even thought about reading being vaguely related to speed...I've always just read.

[Jay]

No idea whatsoever about how many books I read and I don't really care if it's 10 or 10 000. Re the speed thing, I just read at what speed the book seems to ask for, some books read really fast, some read very slow while I can't chose which one I prefer more. What Koa said... I just read.

[Snukes]

I started keeping track of the books I read about five years ago (it's somehow so satisfying to have a list, but then, I am a compulsive list keeper), and there are currently 435 lines in the spreadsheet. Granted, I tried to remember as many novels as I could from my past, but that's not a very successful endeaver. And some lines say things like "The entire series of Nancy Drew books" :p. So who knows?

A bunch! I've read a bunch of books, and I hope I have time to read a bunch more books! I'm going to need time too, because I'm not a speed reader any way you slice it.

[mono]

I think counting of books read can seem quite relative. As you mentioned, Snukes, while reading the series of Nancy Drew books, does one necessarily count that as one, since together they prove one continuous story, or as multiple? Additionally, for example, I have seen Dante Alighier's The Divine Comedy split into three separate books, Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso.
The length of books must also contribute to a number's relativity; the short length of Ernest Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea (which I once read in one sitting) seems no less a book than Leo Tolstoy's War and Peace.

[Adelheid]

I have read 601books in my life! How do I know ...
My bedroom is filled with books. the 601 does not
include those boring textbooks and resources books!

I am a self trained speed reader...I can read a 500page
book in 2days or less.

How typically singaporean, speedwhiz! :D

don't you ever remember reading a booking in assembly hall everyday??? :lol:
ALMOST every singaporean wears glasses, lah! isn't it proof enough that they can read heapsss alright?? :D

Not surprised that you've read so many.

Me? I've read so many (and reread even more times) that I've totally lost track. :nod:

[Vampire Kari]

I'm not sure how many books I've read but I know for a fact that it's ALOT.

[baddad]

.....bunches........scattered and massive dusty piles of books in my wake...........manymanymanymany.............severa l several thousands............40 or 50 fifty this year already......a virtual cornucopia of books.............so many that most are forgotten unless picked up years later, fresh reading is begun and the sense that yes, i've read this before is adamant, and then the fresh re-reading is continued and the book tossed into the pile when finished........I read so many books that I repeatedly hear lamentations from many whom I meet unable to find the time to indulge themselves, a rue of a life that reserves few moments shared with a book........Oh yeah baby....I'm hooked!!!!!! I wish to be buried with a book.

[ArcherSnake]

There's no way I could count the enormous number of books I have read in my entire life, but I know that in the past year I have read at least 45-50.

[Bianca Fransen]

Wow, difficult question. I am always with a book in my hand, but read quite slowly.. Maybe 2 or 3 books a week.. and when I studied Literature it was probably approximately 10 books a week for four years.. I am 28.. have read since I was 6. [Calculating now] about 3.000?? Ehm, that sounds like a lot. But then I count all my children's books and everything.

[underground]

can i also include those little golden books i read as a toddler?

well, i read a lot of series books when i was younger, and one series could be as many as 100 books, so if i include all of those, i have read, uh, enough. i started to make a list of the books i've read two years ago, but my lists are all over the place and i don't even know how many books are on those lists. (i don't have the books; i borrow most of the books i read from the library.) as for this year, i've been keeping an online list instead, which makes it look more organized and easy to track, and so far i've read ~60 books.

p.s. have you heard about that elementary school kid who reads 100 books a month?

[CheshireCat87]

what kind of question is that i mean even if you have all the books you've read in your life in your bed room r u including all the childrens stories you've read do you have good night moon up there if you do have all you throught your entire life then im not to sure that thats a very impressive number and what about the books that you have to read in school weither or not youve finish high school because u read atleast 7 book a in english usually 4 course books and 3 "private reading" (isn't all reading privated at that point in life) any way i've lost my self oh yeah um the average person probably reads 20 books a year now lets say your 35 so u should have read atleast 700 books but no one in their right mind would keep track of this and if you do than you really need to get out some more buy a dog or if contact with living things scares you than a plant but no mor of this how many books have you read in your life reading is not a compation its a way to relax and escape from life for a while.
end of rant and i've forgotten my point so i leave you now

[CheshireCat87]

what would posess you to become a speed reader

[underground]

um, person? i have no problem with the i-don't-know-the-shift-keys-exist mode, but where are your punctuation marks? i shall now recommend you a book by lynn truss called eats, shoots & leaves.

[scruffy_danny]

It's impossible to say how many books I've read but I try hard to get through one book a week. I think another important thing to consider is how many different genres and styles you have read. Reading all the same stuff, no matter how much you have read, is not as good as say reading less books but with more diversity in.

[samercury]

How many books have I read.... too many to count more than 2000 but less than 6000 is the closest I can come up with.

[yellowfeverlime]

I read 6 books a week, 3 on a bad week. So far, i can name 700

[yellowfeverlime]

But i'm sure i have read more, cause i have been counting for a few weeks, and i come up with 200 a week. Far-fetched but true.

[Pendragon]

Couldn't tell you. I could read by age 4. I was reading college level when other kids my age were struggling with the "Dick and Jane" series. The fact that I own around 4,000 books, and usually stay about 100 to 150 books behind on my reading all the time, may give you some indication. On my database of read books, and this does not include any I have check out of libraries, just the ones I own, I am up to number 1781, and I haven't entered them all. Since I'm disabled, and have been since 1994, and TV bores me, I read all the time. Sometimes, I can get a 400 page book in a day. Just depends on how interesting it is. Still 41 years of consistant reading is a lot of books! :rolleyes:

[mickeymack]

I am with Cheshirecat on this one! Why even ask the question? It just brings out the braggart in everyone,as people vie with each other and lie claiming to have read more than each other leading to a debasing "literary" oneupmanship.Has anyone read David Flusfeder's THE GIFT? If you have you'll know what I mean.
1. Read.
2. Enjoy.
It's simple!

[subterranean]

I will never know the exact numbers; books I own or the ones I borrowed from libraries, friends, families. Until this day, I even don't have exact inventory of the books I have at home

[B-Mental]

I sit in a crater of previously read books, ten feet wide and six feet high (and growing). The crater floor is filled with my own muck as I am too lazy to break, let alone reshelve my past intimacies. The book gods tend to my needs....

This is not my first book pile, you do the math.

[yellowfeverlime]

927 so far!

[subterranean]

Do you sleep on them?



I sit in a crater of previously read books, ten feet wide and six feet high (and growing). The crater floor is filled with my own muck as I am too lazy to break, let alone reshelve my past intimacies. The book gods tend to my needs....

This is not my first book pile, you do the math.

[B-Mental]

Do you sleep on them?

Yes, of course I do! Its really not recommended as it isn't all that comfortable.

[el01ks]

No idea how many I've read in total - seem to be older than quite a lot of people on here though, so possibly more than some of you. I once read 150 books in a month for charity (things like sweet valley high, and that sort of length)... Normally read about 5-10 books a week, but some of them will be books I've read before. Probably read a couple of thousand books though... well, I did graduate with a 2 1 degree in English last year!

[subterranean]

What sort of charity was that?
Did you got to do story telling?



I once read 150 books in a month for charity (things like sweet valley high, and that sort of length)... !

[Kiwi Shelf]

God, this is a hard question. I started keeping a list of what I read during a month, though, but it only goes back to 2002. Then there is all reading I do for school... I am sure that there has been a lot. I own quite an extensive amount of books to begin with.

[beetrue2u]

speedwhiz,
amazing! though Im not sure of the exact number of books I have read, I wish I did. I have never counted. how did you teach yourself this skill? do you retain everything? just curious.

[Pensive]

I started to read when I was 6, At first - I used to read Urdu novels because I was unable to understand English but I was able to read English books like "Little Red Riding Hood" or "Goldilock And The Three Bears" I read these type of books from 6-10.

The first English novel that I read and fully understood without any adult's help was Five Get Into A Fix by Enid Blyton. I can very well remember that when I completed it, at that time I was in Grade 4. I liked it a lot. It was adventurous and that is the thing for which kids look out in the age of 10. After it, I started to read books by Enid Blyton.

After it, at 11, I started Harry Potter series and got into it really very much. When the sixth book was coming, I was feeling mad and I did not want to wait. At that time, a few days before HP 6th came out, I found Mill On The Floss, I started to read it and the whole night, I kept on reading it. That was the time when I found a little awareness that there are many books other than Harry Potter series ot Mill On The Floss (that was one of the best things that I have learned from my life.)

After it I read over 20 books or so...
As many books as I read, I felt that mind was being opened. I came to know something new in each book.

That was my reading history, I love to tell it not only because it reminds me of how many books I have read but because of how much I have gained. I have gained pleasure, knowledge and most of all entertainment from these books.