Book Census 2013

31st December 2013

Book Census 2013

I hardly dare to tell you that I actually don’t know how many books I own. On the other hand, you might have noticed that by now. I know this sounds completely crazy. It is crazy. And I do hate it so I’m going to change this today – or at least I’m going to try.

You might ask yourselves how this is even possible. The main problem is that, as much as I love reading, I love collecting books even more. There’s just something about holding them in my hands and looking at them being all gorgeous on the shelves that kills off every spark of reason when I’m in a situation that could possibly result in me getting more books. Yes, I’m a book-buying addict. Big time. However, one of my resolutions for 2014 is to scale down my hauls. Not because I don’t want to get more and more books, but because I’m totally running out of space. It doesn’t help that it’s almost impossible for me to part with books. I even tend to hold on to those which I didn’t like, which, let’s be honest, is a total waste of space. Still, …

This, by itself, wouldn’t necessarily have ended in me losing track of my books. But when I started using Goodreads excessively in late 2011, I also began to neglect maintaining my Excel lists. So while I was adding all the new purchases to my Goodreads shelves, I failed to add the newbies of the past two years to my Excel lists. Worse, Goodreads didn’t have most of my German novels in its database and although I keep adding them, there are still quite a few missing. As a result, I have an Excel list with all the ‘old’ novels, which falls short in the newbies department, and a Goodreads list with all my newest purchases and the few e-books in my possession, but which is far from complete when it comes to my ‘old’ novels. I completely and utterly lost count, which is not a hard thing to do considering that I own … well, something about 1400 books (GR: 1407 including e-books, Excel: 1424 excluding e-books). So now I have to get both lists up-to-date.

Since I don’t have any plans for New Year’s Eve, I decided to spend the whole day sorting, counting, and reshelving books in order to put things straight. I just moved back in with my parents for the next couple of months to save the rent while writing my bachelor thesis which means that I have a spare bookshelf from my flat which will be incorporated into my already overstuffed room library. Bookish chaos at its best!

I thought it would be fun to share this event with you, because I know how much you love looking at overstuffed bookshelves. I don’t know how I’m going to do this, but there will be updates from time to time over the course of this day. I’m also planning on giving you my bookish stats in a separate post when I’m done with the counting and reshelving and assessing. So let the census begin!

Update #1 (7pm)

Well, so much for book reshelving … instead, I catalogued and sorted my DVDs with my sister. But that’s what I had to do first, since they were lying on the floor where I now want to put my books. It just took so much longer than I thought it would. But now they are finally where they are supposed to be and now I can start clearing out and remodeling my biggest shelf. But first, I need to find some pliers …

Update #2 (9pm)

I’ve been very busy these last two hours. I cleared out most of my red shelf, looked for all my non-horse-hardcovers (hopefully I found them all but I’m not so sure), and put them back on the shelf to get an overview. Then, I started to remodel and clean the other half of my shelf so that the shelves will be on the same level, which they weren’t before.

BC2013a

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18 responses

  • omg du tust es wirklich! ich kann meinen Augen nicht trauen :p nein, Spaß beiseite! Gut, dass du das in Angriff nimmst. und unbedingt Fotos machen wenn du ganz fertig bist! 😀

    • Oh, Fotos wird es in Massen geben xD ! Bin auch bald fertig. Eigentlich fehlt nur noch das Pferdebücherregal ^^ … Bisher bin ich ja sehr zufrieden. Hab gerade auch noch so viel Platz, dass ich sogar die Bücher, die ich eigentlich los werden will, in das eine Regal einräumen konnte. Das lädt direkt zum Befüllen ein, aber ich muss mich dieses Jahr ja mal zur Abwechslung am Riemen reißen!

      • Bitte nicht den neu geschaffenen Platz gleich wieder mit neuen Büchern vollstellen!! XD ich glaube an dich!

      • Ich versuch ja, mich zusammenzureißen. Irgendwie werde ich das doch dieses Jahr mal ein bisschen besser hinbekommen, oder?!

  • Over 1400. One thousand four hundred. What the hell, Cara? xD But that explains those many additions of horse books on GR. I have to admit, their titles are all very funny. x)

    • Damn! I wanted to delete those updates so I wouldn’t flood your feeds with them but I completely forgot about it. Well, I guess it got a little too late yesterday. But I have only one more day to go and then I will finally be done. Nevertheless, I have to admit how surprised I was how many of them were still missing on GR 😉 . I’m currently at 1435 (GR) to 1450 (Excel). The first count includes ebooks, the second most of the novels I’ve sorted out. I really hope that these two numbers will be the same at the end of this day. Else I’m going to freak out.

      • Never mind that, they’re actually amusing. 😀 (Saskia gibt nicht auf, niemals!)
        Even if it’s not the same number … who cares if some books are missing on a list. 😀 They’ll turn up eventually, I guess. And if not – smaller tbr pile, yay!

      • Glad that you’re amusing yourself at my expense ;P ! There’s also Sascha und das schwarze Fohlen somewhere in my collection …
        I do! I’m a perfectionist and I’m going to count as long as it takes! I will get the actual number sometime – I hope.

      • Well, you didn’t choose the title, so it’s actually the author’s/publisher’s expense. xD (Plus, I was raised like this. “Was stört mich fremdes Leid?,” is one of the sentences I heard veeeeery, very often. xD)
        You would get the actual number when the ones missing are the only ones left, so … even my lazy-ass approach would help to reach your aim. x) (I’m just trying to help, really.)

      • Well, a little friendly teasing doesn’t hurt 🙂 !
        Yeah, but I’m just going to count them one last time and then that’s it. Luckily, I’m almost done. Your approach would drive me crazy because it would keep bugging me.

      • Nope, it doesn’t. 😀
        I’ll keep my fingers crossed that it’s the same number now. 😉

      • Thanks. It has to be! It just HAS to be! xD

  • Oh my gosh! This really is crazy, but the good kind of crazy! 😀
    Can’t wait to see the results when you’re done. I’m kind of jealous. I would love to own so many books someday but I don’t mind if it takes me another couple of years 😀

    • It’s so crazy that I’m beginning to go crazy xD ! After I went through all of my printed books, my lists still differ and I can’t find the mistakes. I’m just going to count the books on my shelves and be done with it for now. I’ll come back to the issue when I’ve got the time to deal with it.
      But I will take a million pictures for you. I really love how it looks now. I have a snug little bookshelf corner now. I wish I had a nice plushy reading chair to go with it. Well, I started collecting early on and about half are my horse novels, but it doesn’t really matter. The overall picture is just smashing.

  • O_O hast du nicht mal Angst, dass die sich Nachts auf dich stürzen und dich im Schlaf ermorden? xD Aber die Bilder sollte ich mal meine Eltern zeigen, die denken ja schon immer ich hab eine an der Klatsche. Für mich sieht es jedenfalls nach dem siebten Himmel aus ♥ Wenn ich ne eigene Wohnung habe werde ich da auch sicher auch Buchzimmer haben (Au ja, das werde ich, glaube ich ganz fest dran)

    • Ich nicht, aber meine Ma xD ! Dementsprechend darf ich auch keine Regale über mein Bett hängen. Jetzt stehen die also mehr oder weniger außen herum, aber mal abgesehen von meinen Füßen kann da nichts erschlagen werden. Dafür stehen die Regale dann doch zu weit vom Bett weg. Und nachdem ich meine Bücher über alles liebe und sie pfleglichst behandel, mögen die mich so sehr, dass sie nicht mal auf die Idee kommen würden, sich selbstständig zu machen, geschweige denn, mir an die Kehle zu gehn 😉 !
      Mach dir nix drauß, meine Eltern denken vermutlich dasselbe. Nur haben die dann doch irgendwann klein bei gegeben und ich hab seit längerer Zeit schon nicht mal mehr gehört, dass ich mal was ‘Ordentliches’ lesen soll (also kein YA). Ich hab sie mir einfach gut erzogen ^^ !
      Ich träume ja immer noch davon, in meiner einen Zimmerecke eine Wendeltreppe in das Kellerzimmer gleich unter mir zu bohren und das dann als Bibliothek zu nutzen xD !

      • Meine Eltern akzeptieren es auch insgeheim, sind sicher sogar etwas stolz, dass ich diesen Sammeltrieb habe und nichts anderes. Gibt ja weit aus schlimmere Kinder, oder? xD

      • Ja, also was will man denn bitte auch schon gegen lesen/Bücher sammeln als Hobby sagen? Und wir sind doch auch so pflegeleicht: alles, was es braucht, um uns eine Freude zu machen, ist ein Buch.

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