Ninety-Two

I have been cataloging the non-academic books I own. I have discovered that I have ninety-two novels and six books of verse. I actually possess more books than these, but am going to exchange them for store credit at the second hand store. Leaving the books of poetry aside, ninety-two books! I had no idea I owned so many! They don’t look nearly as numerous as they sit on my bookshelves. None of the books I own, excepting War and Peace, are abridged. And indeed, I don’t think I would ever be able to read an unabridged version of that tome. I have read nearly half the books I own in their unabridged entirety, thirty-four to be precise, and am in the process of reading a thirty-fifth - Silas Marner. I also have read several (thirteen) when I was younger in their abridged versions, buying the unabridged versions as an adult hoping to read them in all their glory. And I am yet to read about another half (forty-four) of the books I own.

The last category was the one that surprised me the most. When I was younger, I had a desire to own only those books that I had read and reveled in. Consequently, I never read the books I owned, I only kept them as mementoes of the parts of my identity that had been shaped by them. But now, I think I am insatiable in my conquest of editions of literary work, my purse permitting of course. In any case, eight more books to go before I score a century! My hundredth would have to be especially special.

P. S. Interesting bit of history: This day in the year 1875, the very first newspaper cartoon slip was published! My favorite bit of the newspaper really, following close at the heels of the crossword, jumble and the sudoku puzzles.