How many books in your library?

[Mr_H_Poirot]

Yes. Libby gives 3 weeks reading time (at least in UK) but I know what you mean. You HAVE to read it within that time once you've taken the book. So you lose a bit of autonomy in choosing a book that suits your mood that week. But I have calculated that my kobo paid for itself within a year of using Libby if one assumes I'd otherwise have bought the books I read

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by Mr_H_Poirot

Yes. My comment about 'seriously rich' was not very wise. I hadn't appreciated both how cheap some ebooks can be, the time period over which people have acquired them etc. And it could come across as judgemental for which I regret

I just have been surprised by the size of others collections. I do read a lot from standard ebooks. I find their books superbly formatted and have enjoyed reading some classics. I tend not to record the books I borrow from Libby/overdrive

I recommend recording books you've read in calibre, even if it's just a record with no files (as I have for the very occasional paper book I read)

I commend you on the poll. It's a very good question. I wouldn't have guessed there'd be so many with more than 10,000.

As for cost. As I have all my purchases in calibre, and bearing in mind that some are approximate conversions from $ to £ and that for some of them I got credits at Fictionwise that aren't necessarily factored into the prices, I've spent £7,746.97 on 4606 ebooks, at an average price of £1.68. Over 24 years, so about £322 per year. That sounds about right. A bit less in recent years, and a bit more earlier on.

[Mr_H_Poirot]

I do (since about 3 years ago) record all books I've read on storygraph and Goodreads (don't really know why I keep recording on Goodreads as I prefer storygraph). I give a star rating and include a very brief review. So I do keep a record that way which includes the books I've loaned.

I could keep a record in calibre too I guess

[Tarana]

Originally Posted by Mr_H_Poirot

I'm guessing you guys with 5000+ can't buy all your books (unless you're seriously rich); so am assuming there's a lot of standard ebooks and Gutenberg in there.

Not necessarily. If you bought your kindle in 2010 or 2011, the number of books, even by well known authors, offered free or at severe discount was phenomenal from 2012 through 2014. Then again from 2019 to 2021. So much so that I downloaded my freebees into a separate Calibre library and deleted them out of the Amazon cloud because it was just too much to go through (they didn't have collections then). Are all these 5000+ books read? No. But acquired is acquired. I only have about 2 dozen Gutenberg titles (mostly Dickens). Even after removing the freebees (just for Amazon, mind you), I still have 2,600+ ebooks. I'm guessing about 400 were purchased for other family members which I hope to eventually read myself as well.

[theducks]

Some of the now Public domain authors are no longer PC, even if their work manages to hold up in a more modern world.

Some just had so glaring science errors (that were not explained away).

Others are banned because of events (hide history) Ratner than preface them as 'learning from our errors'

[nmrg218]

My Calibre currently counts 488 but I voted for the >500 option as I know I'll get there eventually in a few days so why not.

235 of the 488 are from Standard Ebooks and others are either from Gutenberg or the Kobo store or through other means.

Aside from that, my 20-ish physical books were all obtained prior to me starting to e-read exclusively.