If this were a poll,

[ZatarRufus]

How would you respond?

How many books do you own?

1: Zero
2: 1-10
3: 11-35
4: 36-100
5: 101-250
6: 251-1000
7: 1000+

What are the top 2 Dewey Decimal classifications or genre of your library based on quantity of the books you own in said categories?

Ref:

000 Generalities
100 Philosophy & psychology
200 Religion
300 Social sciences
400 Language
500 Natural sciences & mathematics
600 Technology (Applied sciences)
700 The arts
800 Literature & rhetoric
900 Geography & history


Sub-Topic 1

If you were to be stranded on a desert island for one year, what 3 books would you like to have with you? (We will assume there is reasonable food, shelter, and clothing as well as an unlimited supply of paper and writing implements. However, there are no medical supplies, so if you have a condition (such as I do) which would cause you to die before the year is out, does that affect your selection?)

Sub-Topic Alternative

If you could substitute the complete musical works of any 3 composers, groups (bands), or artists for one book, what would you select and how many books would you replace with music? (We assume there is an awesome musical playback device.)

Sub-Topic for Fun

If you could add one book or the equivalent quantity of music to the selection of another Lurker, what would you suggest and for whom? (I think this might be interesting if you list the Lurker's name but type the book title and reasoning in one of those blacked out spoiler boxes and the named Lurker doesn't read that part until they have made their own selections. (You can list selections for as many Lurkers as you want.))

[Maitre]

5: 101-250
I think at this point, the top three classifications around my house are FIC, REF and JFIC.

Sub-topic 1: see the following, and bear with me: A LA Recherche Du Temps Perdu, an appropriate companion volume such as this, and a little bit of memory support such as one of these. I started a phase not to long ago of trying to wade through various pieces in the history of literature in their original form, including a collection of Lovecraft's works, Moby Dick, Inferno (though I did go for the annotated English translation) and a few other things that people generally stay away from if given the choice. I figure with a year alone, adequate supplies and shelter, I just might be able to get through the dreaded density of Proust's language, and may be able to leverage a bit of it and improve my own rhetoric.

[shoju]

How would you respond?

How many books do you own?

1: Zero
2: 1-10
3: 11-35
4: 36-100
5: 101-250
6: 251-1000
7: 1000+

What are the top 2 Dewey Decimal classifications or genre of your library based on quantity of the books you own in said categories?

Ref:

000 Generalities
100 Philosophy & psychology
200 Religion
300 Social sciences
400 Language
500 Natural sciences & mathematics
600 Technology (Applied sciences)
700 The arts
800 Literature & rhetoric
900 Geography & history


Sub-Topic 1

If you were to be stranded on a desert island for one year, what 3 books would you like to have with you? (We will assume there is reasonable food, shelter, and clothing as well as an unlimited supply of paper and writing implements. However, there are no medical supplies, so if you have a condition (such as I do) which would cause you to die before the year is out, does that affect your selection?)

Sub-Topic Alternative

If you could substitute the complete musical works of any 3 composers, groups (bands), or artists for one book, what would you select and how many books would you replace with music? (We assume there is an awesome musical playback device.)

Sub-Topic for Fun

If you could add one book or the equivalent quantity of music to the selection of another Lurker, what would you suggest and for whom? (I think this might be interesting if you list the Lurker's name but type the book title and reasoning in one of those blacked out spoiler boxes and the named Lurker doesn't read that part until they have made their own selections. (You can list selections for as many Lurkers as you want.))

1.) Well, I'm staring at my 2 largest bookshelves, so I'm going to say

6: 251-1000.

2.) Pretty even split between 600 and 800.

3.) Brave New World - Aldous Huxley, Jennifer Government - Maxx Barry, The Tibetan Book of living and Dying (one of the few 'religous'/'philosophical' books I own and have read all of)

4.) That is a tough call. Everclear, weezer, Stone Temple Pilots, Soundgarden / Chris Cornell, and the Mighty Met all hold special places in my heart. I might MIGHT substitute Jennifer Government for the collected works of one of them, probably Everclear.

5.) I would love to get people to read Jennifer Government, or Syrup by Maxx Barry, or the collected works of one of the bands I listed. Everclear is a chronological journey through my life, while Weezer makes me feeel good, and STP/Soundgarden/Chris Cornell defined me as a musician.

[kandrathe]

How many books do you own?

6: 251-1000 I know I have 10 to 20 boxes of my sisters old SciFi books from the 60's and 70's in the garage and in my basement. She left them to me in 1980. She reads. Too much, really. It was 3-5 a day back then. She gave her boxes of romance novels to someone else.

What are the top 2 Dewey Decimal classifications or genre of your library based on quantity of the books you own in said categories?

After having kids it became clearly 150-Psychology. Another one came in the mail today. Before kids is was a toss up between SciFi, and actual science and technology.

Sub-Topic 1

1. FM 21-76 by the US army
2. The encyclopedia of fish cookery by A.J. McClane
3. Canoe Rig: The Essence and the Art : Sailpower for Antique and Traditional Canoes by Todd Bradshaw.

Sub-Topic Alternative

Nope. I'd take the books.

Sub-Topic for Fun

Hmmm....

[--Pete]

Hi,

How would you respond?

Honestly. ... Oh, the poll hasn't started yet? Sorry.

How many books do you own?

There's 2059 titles in my Book Collector db. That doesn't include a few boxes that I've not cataloged yet.

What are the top 2 Dewey Decimal classifications or genre of your library based on quantity of the books you own in said categories?

I prefer LCD, but using Dewey:

500 Natural sciences & mathematics
800 Literature & rhetoric

If you were to be stranded on a desert island for one year, what 3 books would you like to have with you?

One would suffice: Suicide Made Easy

Actually, without too much thought I'd say:
Gödel, Escher, Bach by Hofstadter
Gravitation by Misner, Thorne, J.A. Wheeler, and J. Wheeler
The Annotated Alice, Gardner

If you could substitute the complete musical works of any 3 composers, groups (bands), or artists for one book, what would you select

None.

The selections I made where based more on their ability to keep my mind occupied than to entertain me. A novel might give me a few hours of amusement, but then I'd only want to reread it years later, if at all. These books will fill many days with contemplation of the ideas contained in them. I would happily take the music, but that too would get pretty repetitive over a year.

--Pete

[Kylearan]

Hi,

this looks like more than just curiosity on your part. Will our data be used in some sort of study? Could you elaborate a bit (after the "poll" has closed, if needed)?

How many books do you own?

6: 251-1000 (about 300)

What are the top 2 Dewey Decimal classifications or genre of your library based on quantity of the books you own in said categories?

800 Literature & rhetoric
500 Natural sciences & mathematics

If you were to be stranded on a desert island for one year, what 3 books would you like to have with you?

Gödel, Escher, Bach (Dougas R. Hofstadter) (yes, I would have picked it even if I hadn't read Pete's response first)
The Lord of the Rings (The trilogy-in-one-book edition )
A book on European history, as detailed as possible

The first I picked because I wanted to read it again for some time now, now that I have gained a lot more knowledge in that field. The second because I can't read it often enough, even back-to-back, and it's good for relaxing after reading the heavy stuff. The third because my history education was awful and I really would like to know more about it, and because I know that unfortunately I'm very bad at memorizing history stuff, I'd have to read it several times.

If you could substitute the complete musical works of any 3 composers, groups (bands), or artists for one book, what would you select and how many books would you replace with music?

I'd take the works from Massive Attack, Kate Bush and Johann Sebastian Bach instead of the Lord of the Rings.

-Kylearan

[ZatarRufus]

This looks like more than just curiosity on your part. Will our data be used in some sort of study? Could you elaborate a bit (after the "poll" has closed, if needed)?

It is active curiosity on my part. It came about as I am currently trying to sort my books into a limited space. My home has two bedrooms and up until about three years ago one of them was devoted entirely to my library and was very well organized. Then my sister, who is disabled had to move since her roomate of 15+ years decided to get married. Her income is limited to SSD and it seemed best to move her in with me. I had to quickly box almost all of my books and pile them in the living room and my bedroom. (I've been living it what looks like a wharehouse since then.) Anyhow, I've just started un-boxing and sorting which got me to thinking that Lurkers probably have similar large libraries as compared to the average person.

This also got me to wondering which books would be top priority for me to read and I thought a thread here at the Lounge might provide some interesting results for myself as well as for other Lurkers.

My library is at least category 6 but could easily be over 1000. Over the past 10 years I've been in roughly 100 homes per year to appraise their value and I've noticed that only 2-3% of them have an extensive library and about 5% have a moderate library. My gut feeling is that Lurkers would represent a different segment than these 'average' people.

It also seems to me that it would give another way for Lurkers to learn more about their friends here by showing what their main interests are by the books they have and which three they would select in my scenario.

The data will not be used for anything other than what it is here on the Lounge.

[--Pete]

Hi,

I had to quickly box almost all of my books and pile them in the living room and my bedroom. (I've been living it what looks like a wharehouse since then.) Anyhow, I've just started un-boxing and sorting which got me to thinking that Lurkers probably have similar large libraries as compared to the average person.

I've gone through something similar. In Maple Valley we had a dedicated library, as well as bookcases scattered around the house. When we had to move because of health reasons, I got a bar code scanner and Book Collector, cataloged the books as I was packing them so I could find them later. Ran out of time, thus the uncatalogued books. Those boxes lived in a rented storage facility from late 2004 till about a year ago. We moved to a bigger, flatter place and have space for the books again. It's taking forever to unpack them, though.

--Pete

[ShadowHM]

I think I likely am at the top end of range 6 right now. I have done two massive book purges in my past (besides regular whittling as time goes by). Both were occasioned by moves, the more recent one being about two years ago. I had to have one entire wall in my living room converted to shelves to accommodate the collection, and still have three more bookcases in that room plus one bookcase per bedroom. Plus the books at the cottage...

Most of the books I have kept are non-fiction. I have rather a lot of history books and texts, old textbooks (fifty or more years old, for perspective on what and how history topics were taught), a large selection of Do It Yourself manuals, another large selection of 'outdoor information' guides (many of the Field Guide to... series and similar ones), wine selection guides, photograph books (of the sort that used to be called 'coffee table' books), quite a few dictionaries and related books and a number of atlases of various types as well as a growing collection of books on the subject of evolution and human attributes. I do still have a small collection of CanLit, Speculative Fiction and Children's fiction.

As Pete said, I would be unlikely to bring fiction to that desert island. But I would be hard pressed to select only three topics to last me a year.

Much as I like music, I would not trade any books for music.

[ZatarRufus]

3.) Brave New World - Aldous Huxley, ...

I have Brave New World (and Brave New World Revisited) in my collection but have not gotten around to reading them. Since BNW is top on your list and it happens to be one I un-boxed and had in my hand not more than 24 hours ago, I have moved it up in my priorities.

Is this one you have read and enjoyed so much that you would re-read it several times on that island?

5.) I would love to get people to read Jennifer Government, or Syrup by Maxx Barry, ...

Because?

[ZatarRufus]

Gödel, Escher, Bach by Hofstadter

This is one that I have and read in August of 2009. I find it interesting that both you and Kylearan choose it as a top priority. While I did enjoy it immensely, it is quite a bit over my head and I personally wouldn't take it as a third of my choices. I did underline about 5% of the text as I read and cross referenced the 'see figure x' references (p702 see 82 & I noted it was back on page 494).

The selections I made where based more on their ability to keep my mind occupied than to entertain me.

This would be my sole criterion as well. I'm thinking more along the lines of Newton's Principia for the Common Reader by S. Chandrasekhar for my mental gymnastics.

Book Suggestion Sub-Topic

For you (Pete) and kandrathe, I would suggest either The Book of Nothing (Vacuums, Voids, and the Latest Ideas about the Origins of the Universe) by John D. Barrow or The Theory of Laminated Spacetime by Barbara Dewey.

[--Pete]

Hi,

For you (Pete) and kandrathe, I would suggest either The Book of Nothing (Vacuums, Voids, and the Latest Ideas about the Origins of the Universe) by John D. Barrow or The Theory of Laminated Spacetime by Barbara Dewey.

Thanks. The Book of Nothing is very interesting. It's in my collection (box #41, if it matters ) and I read it shortly after it came out. I'll check out Dewey's book next time I'm online with the library.

--Pete

[ZatarRufus]

... Lovecraft's works ...

I just de-boxed The Case of Charles Dexter Ward by H.P. Lovecraft. I've not read it. The cover says "...[he] wrote only one full-length novel. This is it."

Was this one you waded through?

When I was ten or twelve I read his short story "The Colour Out of Space". This was back when I could immerse myself so thoroughly into what I was reading, it was as if I were there and taking part of what transpired. I had nightmares for two or three days afterward. Later, (much later) I tried some of his Cthulhu mythos but just couldn't get into them.

... Moby Dick ...

Although I never made it far into Ishmael and Captain Ahab's adventure, I did read a short story or two by Melville a few years ago. Thus ended my own forray into this particular 'classic' author's works.

How did you fare?

[ZatarRufus]

... quite a few dictionaries and related books ...

My dictionary section contains 125 books or there-abouts. I have a couple dozen 'regular' dictionaries with copyright dates back to the early 1900s. The rest are specialty ones ranging from A Dictionary of Agriculture to one about Zoology with many other topics in between such as Carnival Worker's Jargon, Electronics, Geography, Horseman's Terms, Music, and so forth.

A few of my favorites are The Devil's Dictionary by Ambrose Bierce, A Contrarians's Dictionary by Murray L. Bob, and NTC's Dictionary of Changes in Meanings by Adrian Room. The latter being quite interesting especially when I read very old books.

When I had my dedicated library room, I debated quite a bit about whether to keep all the dictionaries in their own section or to intermingle the specialty ones within the corresponding sections of my collection. I finally decided on keeping all the dictionaries together.

How do you arrange yours? Any particular favorites?

[--Pete]

Hi,

Although I never made it far into Ishmael and Captain Ahab's adventure, I did read a short story or two by Melville a few years ago. Thus ended my own forray into this particular 'classic' author's works.

How did you fare?

The true story behind Moby Dick:
Melville wrote a textbook on whaling, some 400 pages long. When he went to get it published, he found out that no college taught whaling and that most whalers were illiterate. So he added 10 pages of character development and plot and passed it off as a novel. Since than it has been used as a test by sadistic literature teachers to determine just how far students will go for a grade.

A few of my favorites are The Devil's Dictionary by Ambrose Bierce, A Contrarians's Dictionary by Murray L. Bob, and NTC's Dictionary of Changes in Meanings by Adrian Room. The latter being quite interesting especially when I read very old books.

Based in style on The Devil's Dictionary is Stan Kelly-Bootle's The Devil's DP Dictionary. It's out of print, but well worth tracking down a used copy.

--Pete

[Kylearan]

When I had my dedicated library room [...]

Oooh, nice! That's what I plan to have myself one day, although I'm not sure if we will ever have a room to spare for that - maybe when the kids have moved out.

Somehow I cannot bring it over myself to sell any of the books I've read, even if it was a bad one. I've like to go into my library room when I'm old to see what I've read during my life and what has formed my character and made me the man I then will be, and I also like to look up details from a book if something in life caused me to remember it (which happens quite frequently). Strangely, I only think so about books, not movies. That's also the reason why I don't like to borrow books - if I'll read a book, I like to have it in my library afterwards! I don't think I'll ever buy an ebook either, for similar reasons.

Contrast that to my wife, who sells each book she has read immediately. She owns about 5 books total...

-Kylearan

---

Hi,

How many books do you own?

While writing my post about dedicated library rooms, I realized how old-fashioned I probably am. Somehow it seemed obvious to me you meant traditional books on paper sitting in a bookshelf, gathering dust and losing color. Re-reading your post though, electronic books are covered by your questions too, although from the responses for far about packing books in boxes and such, it looks like I'm not the only old-fashioned book reader around.

I do not own a single e-book, and don't like reading books in an electronic format (even though I'm a computer scientist...). So, as a tangential question, I'd like to ask who buys e-books regularly, and who still prefers to read the majority of his/her books on paper?

-Kylearan

[ZatarRufus]

Somehow it seemed obvious to me you meant traditional books on paper sitting in a bookshelf, gathering dust and losing color.

Indeed I did, but for the purpose of learning about other's interests, I suppose emitation books could also count. This reminds me of something I either read or overheard. It went something like this:

You know what I hate about e-books? It's the smell.

E-books don't smell.

Exactly. I miss that.

I do not own a single e-book, and don't like reading books in an electronic format (even though I'm a computer scientist...).

Somehow I cannot bring it over myself to sell any of the books I've read, even if it was a bad one. I'd like to go into my library room when I'm old to see what I've read during my life and what has formed my character and made me the man I then will be, and I also like to look up details from a book if something in life caused me to remember it (which happens quite frequently). Strangely, I only think so about books, not movies. That's also the reason why I don't like to borrow books - if I'll read a book, I like to have it in my library afterwards! I don't think I'll ever buy an ebook either, for similar reasons.

This expresses my own sentiments to a T. I would have said almost exactly the same had I been the first to write it.

[--Pete]

Hi,

So, as a tangential question, I'd like to ask who buys e-books regularly, and who still prefers to read the majority of his/her books on paper?

I do not buy e-books, but I do download them from Progect Gutenberg. I have a free program that I got from Palm (I think) that converts from text to the Palm reader format. I have a few documents on my Palm (Magna Carta, Rights of Man, Declaration of Independence, Articles of Confederation, Constitution and Amendments, Gettysburg Address) and usually two or three books. I read these when I'm waiting somewhere, or when I'm in bed, or sometimes just when I have nothing better to do.

I prefer paper books, but some of the things I've looked for are long out of print (duh -- they're in Gutenberg). Especially books in other languages.

--Pete

[Sabra]

A couple years back I reached a point in my life at which I was able to let go of most of my books. I realized that they took up a lot of space and were mostly decorative. I didn't go back and re-read them. I donated load after load to the local libaray. I kept the rare volumes and the ones I couldn't live without. I would say that books in my home are now less that 100.

Of those that remain, about 50% deal with Judaica, world religion or history. 10% social commentary. And the balance is split between biography, literature, novels, travel essays and a bunch of childrens books.

Desert Island would be "100 Years of Solitude," "Infinite Jest" and "On the Black Hill."

I have become and excellent candidate for a Kindle.

[ZatarRufus]

I got a bar code scanner and Book Collector, cataloged the books as I was packing them so I could find them later.

I'd love to have my books cataloged!

My original packing plan had almost all books laying flat in their boxes so they would be highly stackable. (Meaning they could be stacked up to 6 high without damage to the books.) I'm now able to give each box its own shelf and I'm using a different approach.

The first layer has the books edge on, then an evening out layer, and topped by whatever will fit to fill up the box.

See attached if you like.