More than thousand books
Regular readers know that I’m a bit of a bookworm. My “career” started back in 1996, when I was in Finnish army and had to entertain myself during the railtrips back and forth to the garrison. I began to buy books instead of loaning them from the libraries — probably because it was easier.
The first books were really cheap, and the level of writing was not very impressive. I didn’t know it back then and anyhow time passed fine with the books. I read also some classics, such as all Sherlock Holmes stories on that time.
The number of books gradually grew, and after about a fifty books my dad built me a bookshelf to my student apartment. That one filled up before I moved to my first own flat. I bought two IKEA Billy bookshelves, 60cm wide, with a couple extra shelves. They were fine for a couple of years (about 250-300 books), and then I purchased third one — 80cm wide this time.
I’ve joked a few times that I need to change flat when the books do not fit in comfortably. That happened in 2002 (for real!), as Sanna and I decided to buy a new flat in Lauttasaari. The bookshelves were already having books in two lines in some shelves… The count were somewhere near 650 or 700.
The new flat got the fourth Billy bookshelf (80cm) that filled slower, as we renovated the flat, got married, had a baby and otherwise spent a full life outside of literature. My taste also got better, so more and more of the books were slower to read. Sometimes I got a bit too literal and were just really happy to get rid of a book and place it into shelf after reading. I’m stubborn enough not to stop reading in a middle of a book, but just keep my grip until the book is completed.
I read my 800 owned book when I turned 30. I remember this as I hurried the few last pages of the book (no recollection whatsoever about the title) to finish it before 8:15 (in the morning), as I’m born on that moment. I didn’t take summer time into account, but it felt great anyhow.
We bought an extra shelf to Lauttasaari flat to hold ever increasing amount of books. Again 80cm Billy from IKEA. The rate of reading books got still slower — I used to read about one hundred books a year, now I’ve spent almost three years to read 200 books. Which finally leads to the subject of this entry.
I’ve been waiting for the thousand mark with some anticipation and also have been thinking of having some celebration, inviting friends in and so forth. A couple days ago I run calculation of my books — I’ve got a full inventory of them in my Palm, as I’ve purchased a few duplicates due to my bad memory; and Palm is good on counting the books. The result was staggering.
I now own 1014 books. There are nine unread books. I can calculate those easily, as they are lying sideways on the bookshelves (and one on my night table). I’ve accidentally passed the thousand mark without any celebration — I don’t even remember which book was the thousandth.
So, I’ve decided not to celebrate the occasion. Instead, I’m writing about it here. Sort of pathetic, but at least I got a good subject for an entry. Maybe I’ll have 2,000 books celebration, but it will take about 13-15 years. We’ll see then.
