The Book Count

 How many books have you got. 

It's not a competition to see who's got the most. If I knew of any more that I wanted, I'd have them but signed books by Larkin, Auden and Eliot aren't sensible prices to collect and since I need the house to live in, I won't be selling it in order to acquire signed Sylvia's or Dylan's (Thomas, not Bob).

Today I did a bit of a count up. It became more of a close estimate than a precise figure but it will do.

Downstairs is the bookcase with shelves for Larkin, Gunn, Shakespeare biography and other privileged sections ( Elizabeth Bishop, Rosemary Tonks, Sean O'Brien). It holds 28 each of Larkin and Gunn, 39 books on Shakespeare, without counting the plays upstairs, and 21 biographies of poets but some poets have their biographies next to their poems elsewhere.

The bit where it became more estimated was in the doubled-up bookcase of poetry collections where the front rows show shelves of 80, 62 and 47 so I knocked a few off those figures to guess how many lesser lights (in my opinion) are hidden behind.

In the main bedroom are 23 Richmal Crompton William books and 19 art books which are nearly all Maggi Hambling.

The upstairs landing has a bookcase with 11 George Eliot, 20 Murakami and 68 novels on the floor including the Graham Swift section pictured. They have only very recently been all in the same place, one of them having spent a year of lockdown in the office in an ex-colleague's locker where it was stranded for the duration.

Turning left from there, one goes into what an estate agent would say was the third bedroom. 

It's more of an archive with 38 Beano Annuals, a few hundred novels, 54 books of plays, the history, philosophy, sport and even the science.

I've added them all up and arrived at 1340. It might be a few more than that but who's counting. Me.

Some are irreplaceable and priceless but possibly only priceless to me. I couldn't collect them again but their insurance value, if not their re-sale value, would buy a racehorse that might jump a hurdle at Newbury. So I'll hold on to the books.

 

This little project could lead on to further, equally enthralling, surveys. Like, which are the Top 10.

And then I could do the same with CD's.