Tuesday, February 20, 2007

Anatomy of a Bookcase

I'm a packrat. I will cheerfully admit that I'm a packrat. (My mother will cheerfully admit that I'm a packrat.) This is particuarly defined when it comes to books. As of last count (and yes, I do keep count), I own 111 books. Add in the manga, that number jumps to 131.

Of those 131 books, how many authors do I own at least one book by? 56.

How many do I own two or more books by? 18.

Three or more? 12.

More than one series? 2.

One series and stand-alones? 2. (Different 2. Above was Garth Nix and Tamora Pierce; here it's Eoin Colfer and Cornelia Funke.)

Of those 131 books, how many are part of a series? 74. (This is including all of the manga (which is comprised of two series: 5 volumes of Fullmetal Alchemist by Hiromu Arakawa, and 15 of Fruits Basket by Natsuki Takaya, all of which were worth the $10 per volume). This is not including books which I bought the first of the series and stopped, or just haven't gotten around to the next ones yet. Books fitting that description: 15.)

Average length of a series that I own? 3.375 books (This is NOT including the manga, because throwing a 5 and a 15 in there would have really messed up the averages.)

Trilogies I own the first two books of and am waiting for the third? 2 (Huh. Thought it was more than that.)

And now, for a genre/subject breakdown, leaving out the manga (I guess Fruits Basket counts as contemporary fantasy, and Fullmetal Alchemist is definitely historical science fantasy. How's that for an overly specific categorical tag?):

Nonfiction: A resounding and amazing 6.
Fiction: 105.

Fiction is further subdivided into:

Historical fiction: 9.
>>(Historical fiction, England, circa Henry VIII: 6.)
Contemporary fiction: 3.
Science fantasy: 13.
Other fantasy: 80.

I've heard it said that you can tell a lot about a woman by looking in her purse.

Well, you can tell a lot about me by looking at my bookcase.

You know what? I think this would make a neat meme. (And I'm a nosy soul.) Just for grins, give us a general breakdown of your bookshelf, by number of authors, genre, series, anything you want. (That and I've always been interested in the rate of information spread.)

I tag Carrie.

(Feel free to ignore me.)

2 comments:

Patrick Alan said...

If she knows what's good for her she won't ignore you...

You have friends. And your friends have friends. And maybe those friends know some deadly aliens who sniff the toes of people who ignore the friends of the friends of the people who know them...

I'm just saying... Maybe she'd be risking a lot to ignore you.

Miri said...

Well, thank you Patrick. That's awfully kind of you to say, tongue in cheek (so far as to be at immediate risk of popping out - DUCK!) or not.

Although I think you have one step too many...I'm fairly sure I know several deadly aliens directly.