40 years of books

This past week, March 8 marked the 40th anniversary of my database of books I've read.  In those 40 years I've read well over 2000 books, averaging one a week.  When I started, I kept the database on index cards and stored the cards in larger and larger boxes until I finally converted it all to an Excel spreadsheet.  But when Collectorz.com came out with their Book Collector program, I knew I had to migrate to it.  It was a monumental task because I not only moved the information in the Excel spreadsheet to Book Collector - I cataloged all the books in my collection as well.

As I look back over what I've read, it's hard to characterize what I've read.  I've read non-fiction and fiction of virtually every genre (though I'm not sure I've read a romance novel yet!).  I've read long books, like the Bible, and Tolstoy's War and Peace, as well as short books that are no more than a literary swallow for a bibliovore.  There are few books I've reread, with the exception of The Lord of the Rings, primarily because there are always so many other books waiting to be read I can't spare the time on rereading.  There are books that I'm happy to talk about with other people, and books that are so personal to me I can't comfortably talk about them.

I'm still hungry for more books.  That's why I wind up buying books faster than I can read them.  That's why I consider myself a bibliovore.