Ken at Homefries.Org tagged me for this meme. I’ll play along. My answers aren’t that different from his, but we seem to be of similar tastes in this regard.
What is the total number of books I’ve owned?
In my entire lifetime? That’s a pretty difficult question to answer given the amount of books that one goes through as a kid, high school, college, etc. I probably have about 700 volumes in my personal collection now, which includes college stuff that has sat in boxes for a long while. My husband has a large collection of fiction and scientific reference works as well. We might have 1500 books in our house at the moment (wow!).
What is the total number of books I’ve actually read?
In adulthood I have found that the books one buys and the books one reads aren’t necessarily the same. I’ll sometimes buy a book because I think its worth having, but not read it for a year or two.
When I was in my early teens I was an intense and voracious reader, and read constantly in the summers. I remember spending a week or two with my grandmother in the summer, and she would take me out to the county library, and wait patiently for me to bring back a stack of books that I would finish in the next week.
I average reading 3-4 books per month usually, depending on the work and my schedule for leisure and reading (less lately). That might average 40 per year. That might mean that I’ve read 1000 books according to those estimates. Let’s put in another 200 books for school reading and other required stuff, which would give 1200 books. That seems like a lot of reading. Maybe I should have taken up a sport along the way or something? 
What was the last book I bought?
Two books by Ken McLeod: The Cassini Division and Cosmonaut Keep. I’ll write up entries about them soon.
Five books that mean a lot to me (in no particular order):
- The Bible - I have a complicated relationship to the Bible, as I have a complicated relationship to my faith, and this collection of sacred writings is a complicated thing in itself. I’d like to claim that I spend more time in study than I actually do, but as I move beyond my own personal fears and prejudices I find a great wellspring of spiritual wisdom and insight here, and a roadmap for what the Good Life can look like.
As our pastor Chuck says: “I don’t take the Bible literally — I take it seriously”. For a good scholarly resource on Biblical texts, I recommend textweek.com. This site is produced by a woman who lives in Jackson, MI (close to me) who is a seminary graduate taking care of a disabled child, and this is part of her ministry.
- The Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion - If you take Tolkien seriously (as I obviously do), then these are two halves of the same work: one in novel form, one in narrative mythic form. I encountered Tolkien’s writings as a child and found them to be a wonderful vehicle for imaginative escape. I rediscovered them later in life and found them to be equally wonderful as an adult reader, engaging deep and meaningful problems of morality, community, and suffering.
- Little, Big by John Crowley - Crowley’s prose is equisite, and his characters vibrant. I have re-read this book more times than I care to admit.
- Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand by Samuel R. Delaney - I didn’t get this book when I read it at 20. I started to understand it better at 25 and found it to be excellent. Maybe I will really start to comprehend Delaney’s genius with language and meaning by the time I’m 40.
- Dune by Frank Herbert - Putting this in my list with the rest makes me a total geek. But I have loved these books for a long time. I don’t always agree with Herbert’s assessment of humanity, but I do appreciate his focus on humanity and all of its incarnations.
By the way, stay away from the Brian Herbert continuation books. They’re crap. He should write his own books instead of trying to write his father’s.