When I was in tenth grade I decided to start keeping track of the books I had read. Initially this was simply an index card file. Years later it became a spreadsheet on the computer. And a few years ago, I moved years of records into a fantastic computer program called Book Collector, from the smart people at Collectorz.com.
Book Collector allows me to keep track of what I've read, what I own, what I've loaned to others, what I have ordered, what I would like to read someday. About 18 months ago I used it to generate the following statistics.
As of February 8, 2009, I had read 2238 books (about 59 per year). I owned 1139 books, but of those I had only read 367. That meant that at the rate I read, if I stopped buying books (yeah, right) the unread books I own would last me 13 years.
But then I took it further. I assumed I'd live to be 80 and continue reading at the same rate. If that was the case, I should only buy a new book every 12 days or so (30/year) to break even (have read everything I own) by the time I die. At which point my lifetime total would be about 3800 books.
So if I only have 1500 more books I can squeeze into my lifetime - the ones I own that haven't yet been read and the ones I will wind up buying - how will I prioritize what I'll read? Or buy, for that matter?
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