Book Survey
 

Reading the thread about American ignorance, and the debate about the literacy of Americans, and whether or not they actually read books, I've decided to ask everyone how many books they've read since January 1, 2000.

For the book to count, you must have read the book in its entirety. Magazines, newspapers, periodicals, and internet forums don't count. This does not also include textbooks, but if you were forced to read a mainstream book for a class, you can count it.

Please be honest, and you can approximate if you don't know the exact figure.



I've read approximately 55 books in that time.

Re: Book Survey
 

Are you ****ing kidding me?

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Is that to the thread, or to the fact I've actually read that many books?

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I'd guess at around 25 - 30. I tend to read books off recommendation or through coversation. I'm not the type to buy a book having read a good review of it, but I will check one out that I hear people talking about or get asked wether I've read it and it's subject sparks an intrest in me.

My problem is finding the time to actually sit down and properly read, paying attention and taking it all in, instead of sort of skimming it and not really reading between the lines and such. Most of the books I've read recently have been related in some way to my degree, either as reaserch towards an accedemic style paper or reading to further my own general knowledge.

I do enjoy reading and try to whenever I can. I'm currently working my way through (for about the 4th time now) my collection of Isaac Asimov books, my favorite of his short stories being "Robbie".

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41 that i can remember, Most of which are books bought for university modules.
Theres probably a couple ive forgotten though

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lots. 7 years is a long bloody time, but if i had to guess i'd say somewhere between 40 and 70.

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Goes up and down, but about 15-20 each year, yes.

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I can't believe you expect me to remember how many books I've read. However in the interest of surveys give me a second or two.



I went upstairs to count there and I'll guarantee about 200. I just can't believe you can remember all the books you've read since January 2000 as books you've read since then. What the hell separates them from books you've read a few months before that in your head?



Edit: For me it can really vary by interest levels how long it may take me to read a book. I bought a book yesterday called Empire of Dragons and read it by about 5am that morning. Equally though it took me, on and off, about 3 months to read Edward Gibbons' Decline and Fall.

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Simple, I never really got into reading books until about the beginning of 2001 really, but decided to make it simple and just round it off to 2000.

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Not many when you exclude text books, under 50 probably.

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I have no idea. I am not going to count them for you because the error margin would be astronomical - but I expect the answer is somewhere between 100 and 200.

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Between 160 and 180. I usually buy two or three books a month and have done since i was in college. There's a lot of crap sci-fi in amongst them all tho, incase they don't count.

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do graphic novels count?

if not probably around the 300 mark (although possibly significantly higher if i really sat down and thought about this)


if they do then you can probably add another couple of hundred or so


disclaimer: a lot of what i read is easy si-fi and fantasy though, given the right mood i can easily get though a average paperback in a single sitting

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I would say about 100-150. Mostly techno-thrillers like Tom Clancy and Dale Brown.

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i'll guess 80 because i reread a lot of things (especially pratchett) over and over again instead of buying something i cant recite

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It's a complete guess, but probably somewhere between 150 and 250. Maybe more.

This question is stupid.

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It's a dead end thread, I'd be surprised if it gets more than 20 posts.

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Are you one of the people in the category of 'I haven't read any books'?

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If he would say none, would you feel better about yourself? You would stilll come over like a ****ing moron anyway.

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Nope, just wondering why he's opposed to the particular question I put out there.

The purpose of the thread isn't for boasting, or to rag on people who don't enjoy books. There's nothing wrong with not reading books, and whether or not you do has nothing to do with intelligence. I just wanted to do a simple survey to get an average of how many books those that do read go through in say a 7 year period such as I put forth.

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I'd guess something like 70 or so, which is shamefully low for me (I almost certainly read more in 1998 than I did in the last six years combined).

Recently I've started enjoying auidobooks, which I can listen to while walking, but obviously I wouldn't count that as reading.

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In all honestly, I couldn't tell you how many books I have read over the last 6-7 years. Looking at my book shelves, at least 300. Then there are all the books I've borrowed, lost, given away.

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I read a novel in about 2 weeks. I'll be generous and make it 3 as there have probably been exceptions, so about 100.

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You haven't lived until you've read The Britannica Encyclopaedia X through Z.

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the internet knocks the will to read out of me

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From 2000 onwards? Over 200, and before that over 700 including kids books, I think that I've read a ****ing lot to be honest.

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I honestly have no idea, I couldn't even hazard a guess. I can't just have a quick count as most of the books I've read over the past seven years have been borrowed from the uni library or Midge 5.

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Quantifying our lives is :cool:

January 2000 I was 17, so I guess that's from my last year at school, through university, up until now.

I doubt it's that much actually. Maybe 50? Like Phang said, I reread books a lot (especially when I'm back in Jersey with my somewhat limited book collection). I used to read all the time up until I was about 12 or 13, then I just didn't bother anymore.

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i read a book about the Tour de France of 1989 this summer, and i think i read another book in 2001 or so. that's about it. i quit reading books requently after i turned 15 or so.

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Hellavah question

i buy 1-2 a month + re-reads in 7 years + library (yes i have books piled everywhere, several bookshelves and boxes in cupboards b4 u ask, i rarely give a book away)
aprox 500 i guess

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about 20 books a year

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I'd guess around 300 but really I have no idea. It should be higher but I re-read books all the time, too much actually now that I think about it. I should start selling books to second book shops or something the second I finish them, I'd get more money and wouldn't waste my time reading Hemingway over and over and over again.

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Since 2000? Oh god. In this house I've about 200 I've read in that time period, with many more books than this sitting in my mother's garage.

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I've read plenty since Y2K (heh horn). Half of which are Stephen King, Orson Scott Card, John Grisham and some Dickens here and there, totalling to around 80 since 2000.

But you start a thread with a closed probe like you did without entertaining any discussion, then you end up with a dead end thread.

It's like starting a thread about how many cigarettes we all smoked today, and you get posts like 10, or 15, 16, 2 packs, etc.

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No-one is stopping you from answering such a question with a three thousand word essay on why you stopped smoking though. That's the wonderful thing about forums like these.

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I suppose with us GD posters. That could be right.

I had a dream one time that GD posters got together an idea that saved humans from extinction.

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I'm really at a complete loss as to even give a remote guess as to how many books I've read in that timeframe.

Seeing as how I've been in education for that entire period - 2000 being the jear I graduated from high school, I probably have read absolute shittons of various books. Back in the day for my exams, then for Journalism, and currently for Ancient History I've pretty much read a metric ****ton of books. I'd say in the past three weeks alone I've read about seven books, another book worth of articles and partial copies of books for my thesis. And on top of that comes everything I've read just for entertainment purposes, which in those same past three weeks adds in another 700-page novel.

So yeah, I'd say that I do read a lot at the moment. I expect this will taper off when done with education, though.

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Do we not think it might be better to investigate how many books people have understood?

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I had no idea how many books I've read, but then I remembered that Amazon keeps receipts online forever and I get at least 80% of my books from them. According to their records I've purchased 152 books (for myself, not counting gifts) from them since 1/1/2000. Of those, I guess I've finished maybe 140 books and then add at least another 40 books purchased elsewhere; so call it 180 books or about 30 books/year. I reread maybe 5 books a year but I'm not sure if/how you want to count those.

Of all the books I read about 40-50% are fiction.

I'm not sure what any of this means except that (a) I read a lot, and (b) I need to look into buying some Amazon stock. :)

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I've borrowed over 150 novels from the library in my hometown, and I own about another ~80. The only book I couldn't finish so far was Dantes "The Divine Comedy". And then there are factual books, and educational books in addition, and the books I've borrowed from the library at my university. I would estimate 250-280, but that really is a guess more than an estimate.

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I like to do the whole thing of signing up for a book club and getting 6-7 books for a dollar (plus s+h), then after buying 4 more books on sale, cancel the account and wait for them to send me a re-enrollment offer of 6 more books for free (plus s+h).

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ive read... two... (edit: and one of them was a harry potter book... so i dunno if that counts)

do u look like that dude in your avatar ?

55...


edit: oh... nm... i thought Jan 1st 2007 :o
/me needs more coffee

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Yeah I found that hard going as well. It's not particularly long and the language was fine but it just got worse and worse as it went on. Inferno was fantastic but became repetitive towards the end, Purgatorio was readable but not great and Paradiso was just awful. I can't even remember what he did there apart from chat to his misses and talk about how great God was.

I would probably have liked the book more if he had started in heaven and then worked his way down to Hell so you finish on the three heads of Satan chewing on Brutus, Cassius and Judas. That would have been badass, although thematically bollocks of course.

Re: Book Survey