Plastic today had an article asking what you intend to be reading that you aren’t yet.

It also starts with the premise that # of bks read per year x # of years in life expectancy = depressing.

E reads 6 books a week x 52 weeks x 70 years = 21, 840 more books.

I read differently. Some weeks I read as few as one. Some weeks I read as many as 120. I’d say I probably average two of those really high weeks a year. Twelve of the really low weeks a year. The rest I’d average between 3 and 10. So at 3 books a week x 52 weeks x 45 years = 7020. I’ll only read 7020 more books in my lifetime. Okay, that is depressing.

If I put it at the 6 it is still only 14,000 books.

I may have to start reading more books.

However, I think that you could easily say that I have read a minimum of 3 books a week all my life. That’s averaging them out and including the weeks I couldn’t read in reality.

3 x 52 x 42.5 = 6630.

That says I’ve only read 6,630 books in my lifetime. Wow. I would have thought I’d read lots more than that.

Updated 7/17/05: I’ve been keeping a list of books I read this year. I am reading an average of 2 books a day. Since I know there have been times when I have read much more than that (ages 7-9 when Dad would take us to the library every day) I think that I can safely say 2 books a day. Starting at age 6.

So 14 x 52 x 36 = 26,208

Okay, that’s a lot more reasonable. Since I own about 5000 books, and I don’t keep every book I read, that sounds much more accurate.