how many of my 1,000+ books have i actually read?
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finally answering my most frequently asked question: how many of my 1,000+ books have i actually read?
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FAQs:
😭 what happened to your intro? it got copyrighted ://///
🤠 how old are you? 24!
📆 when is your birthday? 18th october 1998 (libra)
🎓 where did you go to university? i studied english at durham!
🔎 where do you live? new york city
💼 what is your job? research assistant in the publishing industry
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👾 what do you use to edit? final cut pro
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explaining to my family that buying books and reading books are 2 different hobbies has been the most difficult argument i've ever made in my life
Explain it as a book dragon! You are just collecting your treasure (books) for the sole reason of owning and hoarding them. Dragons don't have use for Gold either
me with yarn... craft supplies in general... now books too. It's okay though. Spouse says he'll build me a wall to wall bookcase to fill. He's a reader too.
Actually, there are 3 hobbies about books: buy, read, and watch people talk about them 🙋🏽♀️💀
@@gingerfaniThat’s a really good way of explaining it!
You have all our support!
You’ve read roughly 76% of your library, I would be so proud! Currently making a conscious effort to get through my books and I’m at 64%.
How many books do you have?
You’re brave for calculating that - I don’t want to know
@@car4368 why not? Maybe he has around 100 books and he read only 64...
@@adityaraj6377 oh I meant brave in that no way am I doing that for myself 😂 I’ll be happily in denial about the amount I own and what I have read and not read.
@@car4368 I am happy coz my success rate is 100% but kinda sad coz i only have few books.
He is the reason why I have so many books in my TBR 🙂
Me 2❤
I have at least 20 in my TBR 🙂
@@jarifhasan4848just 20?? 💀
No cuz I buy so many of his recommended literary fiction books that I can find at the bookstore and I’ve only read a few so far 😭
He and every booktuber I watch is why my TBR is so extensive. And his “book buying and book reading” is my new bookish motto/philosophy.
Jack innocently adding up all the numbers again instead of just subtracting the read amount from the total amount is the level of mathematical skills I possess. Bless his heart
I was thinking that the WHOLE time
He did say in a previous video he isn't a numbers boy
Maybe he has dyscalcula?😭
I was just thinking that Jack doing math is the personification of the phrase "The struggle is real" LOL.
YES! Thank you. I was like…is it just me or you know, MATH
That is actually a very acceptable ratio, especially for someone who is a booktuber and spends a lot of time just busy with books. You've read 76% of your collection, so that's 3 quarters!! To me that's not bad at all
i'll take that as a win!!
To be honest I'd be impressed with 1/4
If I got a penny ever time Jack said „Memoriam is going to be my next read“, I‘d be pretty rich by now😂
i've said it more times than i've read pages of the novel
@@jack_edwards😂😂
I also fliped my books backwards, but I did it with my unread books and the goal is to read everything, so everything is turned the right way at the end.
That is so smart. That would bug me to no end and REALLY get me reading hahaha!
It would have been less of a workout 😅😂
I DO THAT TOO it’s so fun to turn them around
this is smart i might do this LMFAO
I do the same thing! It's like I'm slowly coloring in my bookshelf!
A personal library, as Umberto Eco exemplified, is not a display of knowledge but a testament to our endless pursuit of it. The real value of a library is the amount of UNREAD books. The more I realize what I don't know, the larger my library of unread books becomes. A great bookshelf should be filled with mostly unread books.
I love this ideology. It's quite intelligent
Well said!
What a spectacular comment! Love it!!
Cool! That means I'm guilty as charged. Rar more unread than read. If I've read them and kept them it means I really love them and think I will read them again. There's books I've liked or loved and given away too, so that other people can enjoy them.
No
My library has always been more of a pantry than an archive, with mostly TBR books. I donate most novels I have read; I just don't have the space - I had 35 meters of books at one point, now about half of that - and like to think that other people get more joy out of reading them than I do storing them. Cheers!
I LOVE the description of it as a pantry! I agree, I have a fixed amount of shelf space, and I hardly ever will give away a TBR but a mediocre book I have read is first on the chopping block.
My main problem with this approach is that I usually end up thinking to myself that I'll either want tot reread a book at some point or that a friend might want to read it. I do occasionally sell books I don't see myself rereading at all but those are few and far between.
I pretty much do this too. I only keep maybe 5-10% of the books I read, bc I have to absolutely LOVE it & want to re-read it someday in order to justify keeping it in my limited space.
@@ElentirionI definitely don't buy books I won't reread, so giving them away is not an option for me
I have just done a huge sort out and have gifted many books to community libraries. I have never done this before but feel pretty good about both sharing the joy and filling the empty space in my shelves
A word I wish we had in English is the Japanese word tsundoku, referring to the act of buying so many books they pile up, typically unread.
Nice word!
man, the white-girl urge to get this tattooed now is crazy 😭 very nice word !
Maybe more Ikiume given Japans preference for euarthquakes
I love ❤️ this word!
To have over 1000 books and to have only 251 unread books I’d say is pretty impressive!! That’s a great ratio or read to unread books!
That bookshelf is an actual ✨dream✨
At the age of 72, I still have the first book I ever bought with my own money earned cutting grass. It was, "Biggles, Pioneer Air Fighter" and concerned the adventures of Captain James T. Bigglesworth of the Royal Flying Corps in the Great War. I was ten or eleven years old at the time, and I recall feeling especially proud buying it because it was a hardcover book just like adults purchase. I now have a house full of books and long ago learned to write the date I finished reading a book on the inside publishing info page just so I won't accidentally start reading the same book twice. I also keep a mechanical pencil with me while I'm reading, just to highlight noteworthy passages, or sometimes point out authors' errors.
Jack yelling "BALLS" after hitting his funny bone will be forever iconic
i have a 2000+ book home library and i wrap my TBR books in wrapping paper so i don't know what i'm reading next (they are labeled with numbers and i put the numbers in a box and i pick one out whenever i want to read a book) because i'm so indecisive on what i want to read next i literally get so overwhelmed with the amount of choices so blind picking my books has saved me! it also forces me to read books that have been on my TBR for years!
Well, one thing I do is to read the books and series from the shortest to the longest, no matter what it's about. I have to, because I have 5,400+ books, and I've got a TBR of 2,900+.
@@stephanieellison7834hand over your books now because I own your library
Nice idea
I wrote down the names of books in my TBR and put them in a vase. (Sequels go into an envelope and pull out the next and place it in the vase once I read one that's part of a series). I also get overwhelmed with choosing a new one and can get bored with a series if I'm reading all of them at once. Your idea of wrapping them is fun!
I just read my books in FIFO order. It's a lot less work than wrapping them up. But you seem to enjoy your way, so you do you. :)
You read around 75% of your library, so I think it is pretty good
the fear of books dropping is exactly why a step leader is needed
what are you doing step ladder? 😏
Glad he flipped the ones on top as well. Also would love to see an unhaul now that he's reached a full library. As much as weeding books pains me, it's also immensely satisfying to see someone show off the books that they'll keep forever and those that they wish could exit immediately
i was too so anxious Jack was not going to go through the top ones ahaha
I almost hate to suggest this after you went through all that, including the TickTock idea….I was thinking you could move all the unread books to one bookcase since it sounds like they would fill 1 of the wide shelf units. (Your own private bookstore bookcase;) But…that would be a lot more work. Keep making these library videos. Great fun (for me anyway)
I was going to suggest this as well! I have a tbr shelf and it really helps when you're trying to figure out which book to read next.
I thought he was going to do this originally
Exactly, gather them all together, and why not by colour lol?!
Thank you! I thought this was the.obvious thing to do. Because if he then turns them around (or not) he has a designated place for all his new and to TBR Books.
looks like jack might have to add “youtube’s resident mathematician” to his bio
i know that's right!!!!!!
I will never stop mentioning how much I love the library setup and it’s always nice to see you take stock of what you have (or haven’t) read.
You should definitely utilize TheStoryGraph's "marked as owned" feature so that it can keep track of how much of your library you've read for you
I don’t know how people do this, if I have more than 3 or 4 unread physical books I get so anxious and feel stifled! Really interesting to see other people’s ways of reading and collecting!
I'm a huge mood reader, so if a book isn't exactly what I'm in the mood for at that moment, I won't read it. It would be impossible for me to only have a few books on my physical TBR for that reason!
I work in a bookstore so I get sent loads from publishers and I have a good discount which over 1.5 years of working has resulted in wayyyy too many unread
Ikr? And whenever I buy a book is for short term reading, if I takes a while to read it's because I fucked up 😂 it's interesting how people differ in this aspect
Most of the books I get are from my birthday, which is a big batch at a time, so I’m already doomed to have several on my tbr 😅 Then again, I’m at the start of my collection and still figuring put my tastes, so I’m still trying out my way of reading
I have 208 books on my physical TBR. Recently I moved to my boyfriend's place. I took only 20-30 books with me, since i will have to wait at least a month before my bookshelves get to my bf's place. Right now I have 10 books left unread and it drives me crazy. I'm not in the mood for any of them. So, as a mood reader I am missing my huge tbr
This is actually such a healthy ratio I feel like there’s so many booktubers who buy books just to fill up their library backdrops and never read the vast majority
I always have my unread books turned backwards, motivates me to read them and get to turn them around! Although I only have about 40 unread books so I already know what each book is
That's a great tip! Think I might adopt it.
I kind of prefer the way Jack has done it. But both of your ways are actually good ideas I might do it.
I would organise the books the other way round - turn the backs of those that I haven’t yet read, and give myself a challenge to pull out one of them at random and get a surprise for my next read 🙂 That way it’s a reward to see their spines on show once you have read them, and you get encouragement to read and turn around those that are unread and hiding 📚
He does that. Gotta watch till the end😂
“I have built a library just to play with it.” Hahahahahaha statement of the century!❤️
i got so much joy watching Jack film so many vids with his new bookshelves reminds me of when i was little and my dad bought me a huge dollhouse like i was absolutely OBSESSED with that thing
Okay but I can literally FEEL the joy the books bring you. Like it radiates from you, you’re so happy, and it’s so cool to see :) love your new library!! A dream!!
I feel like Jack is one of the very few people that I can relate to when it comes to having that rush of adrenaline by being a bookworm. I usually read books in my native language (which is Vietnamese), but ever since I came across this KZhead channel, I've divided my TBR books into two sides: one for Vietnamese and one for English 😂😂 Great video as always, Jack!
i LOVE colored edges! My first edition of Six of Crows has black edges, and somehow they did it so the pages kind of stuck together, and it was the most satisfying thing in the WORLD to get them apart by running a finger in between the pages, seriously. My second edition, the collectors edition I (impulsively) bought (it was on sale ok??) has red edges, and I love it just as much. In conclusion: COLORED EDGES FOR THE WIN
I was *shook* that Jack has not yet read Perfume. That book is a masterpiece and I highly recommend it to anyone reading this comment (if you can deal with the fucked up storyline)
What author?
@@Xiallaci Patrick Süskind!!
I hope you will put "Papillon" and "Perfum" on your TBR list soon, as these are two really good books. Two books that will stay in your head forever. Keep reading 🙂
I had to read Parfume for German class and let me just say, I’m so glad that our teacher picked this unbelievable story to teach
It's such a great one!
I read it a a few years ago and still think about it today ! Enjoy, studying it in class must be great !
Not me doing additional math out of curiosity: you’ve read 76% of your entire collection, which for over 1,000 books, I think is more than a little impressive! Like you’ve got a literal library, and I doubt most librarians have read the entirety of the collection at their hands!!!
Why don't you just put all the unread books together on one side?
This is why I don't mix my TBR with my read books XD I find it easier to have an entire grouping of unread books on their own so that I know what I'm looking at and don't have to pick through the rest of my shelves to try and remember what I need to get to (and then I still don't lmao)
I keep my physical TBR seperate too. It means when I see it I am motivated to read something off it. Also - until I read it, I don't know if I'll want to keep it. As I only try keep books I really love and might read again. Just to keep to my space restrictions in my small home.
One thing I plan to do next year is organising my books depending on how much those books impacted my life. That way I can have like a "soul library". Maybe by age aka books that impacted by teenage years, my uni life, my recent days, my dark moments, etc etc. I don't know if you would like the idea to do it too but it would make a very interesting video so we know how many are important to you and shaped you a bit. And the ones who went completely irrelevant through your life.
I LOVE this idea. I might do this the next time I’ll be productive. Next year maybe
I’m a mood reader in that I’m always in the mood for reading but then existential dread hits me first lol
Am I the only one who is really impressed he can remember all the books he's read? My brain just does not work that way. I keep a list so I don't have to remember. 🤪
the library looks so good jack i’m screaming !!! literally a dream 💗
oh how i love watching videos about other people's readings instead of actually reading
I think you should do a full shelf of unread book. It will be easier to pick your next read like this
Watching you making the comparison of buying the books with drinking wine is honestly the best thing about this Saturday. Lots and lots of love from Azerbaijan ❤️
I do something similar but reverse. New books get sorted into their category (fantasy, fiction etc.) But get turned around (pages out) so I get to turn the spine forward as soon as I finished them 😅
I feel like it wouldn't be a very good library if you'd already read everything-- imagine how many adventures you'll get to go on throughout the years with those to-be-read books! Loved the video. 💚
Can you organise them by colour next?
I love sprayed edges and the ones with the beautiful designs painted on top of them are very beautiful. Want to learn how to do it myself.
How do you decide what stays in the library versus what gets donated? I'm sure you've addressed this but I managed to miss it!
I doubt that a lot is going to be donated since he also keeps books that he dislikes (e.g Diary of an Oxygen Thief, etc.) 😅 I mean, I’m not complaining, it’s totally up to him and I know a lot of people that cannot let go of books. 😄 So, but maybe I’m mistaken. :)
Having around 75% of you bookshelf read is pretty impressive! I've tried cataloging my books but I always end up stopping midway cus I start a book I think I should have read by now XD I can't even count them without getting distracted by a book! So, again, impressive! And I see so many new books to add to my collection~
So I’ve spent the last 3 hours watching your videos and I’m really happy that I found your channel. This room looks sooo nice and cozy! I live in a loft-style apartment and have a bookshelf as a wall with a doorway to my bed (aka to my bedroom). I love the ambiance it gives. The plants you put on your shelves makes it absolutely perfect. Oh and also: I like your comparison to people who collect wine. Books are definitely preferable imo because they never spoil and also it’s more likely you pass them on to other people.
I love sprayed edges! 3:59 I admire the writing style of Karen Mcnamus
I am so so jealous of your home library. Also loving all the videos with the library as a main character. Just wanted to share this that I too have 80 unread books out of 210 books that I own. And your 251 unread books makes me feel slightly better about myself. 😂😂
you could also put all of your unread books in one shelf, so it still looks satisfying, plus it gives you a better view on all the books you haven't yet read. Love your home library btw. this is a goal i love to achiev one day as well :)
I love watching other people struggle with library projects and tasks (misery loves company) it’s taken me ages to organize my home library in a way that works for me and my reading habits. But everytime I do a big thrift haul or I have to add a new bookcase it turns into a huge project. But here’s what I do in case it helps I know your video is older but like I said bookcases are a project that keeps on going. So I organize my bookcases by genre (within each genre I group by colour usually so it doesn’t look so busy) and I split my read and my tbr within the bookcase so I can see what’s done and what’s not and I get the super satisfying feelin of moving something that I just finished to the read shelves
the buying books and reading books being a different hobby has been my bio since forever and it came from you, so it feels legendary to hear it again
waiting for the day there's a jack's recs table in waterstones
!!!!!!!!!!!!
The home library looks so GOOOOOD!!! It feels like it's always been there ,can't belive it was built less than two weeks ago ❤
I like to put a red sticker on spine of a book that I’ve read. I have visual cue on if I am collecting, or hoarding
This was a fun exercise to witness. Thanks! Your enthusiasm is inspiring!
This is looking like the Interstellar 4th dimensional bookshelf fr
A quaestion for you Jack, would you consider making a list on goodreads of all the books on your shelves, so we can browse through your library too :))
the ratio of read to to be read is actually really good!! also i wonder if you'd like to do a video on your favorite authors. you keep mentioning your favorite authors and i personally find it hard to find authors that i can call my favorites. it would be nice to see which authors you like a lot and the reasons they're your favorites !! thank you for the video
Your videos are such a comfort zone to me, thank you for creating it.
You’re not allowed to turn them around till you read all the unread on a shelf 😂
I own 179 books and need more because you're motivating to do so 😌
That’s a really impressive collection!!
As someone with 87 books, I am now motivated to make it to one hundred lol
@@Addylovesbooks I always told me the same thing
sprayed edges are GORGEOUS, I want more of such books tbh
Jack!! In the last year I have started to turn around the books I have FULLY finished (I have a lot of started / halfway done books as I too am a mood reader). It is such a nice visual representation of the shelf for me, and helps me deal with some of the guilt of not having read every book I own since I can see the proportion! More reasons to love: - You can see how worn the pages are & all of the tabs or annotations you have done - So easy for recommending books because you can just whip out all of the ones you have turned around - Easier for me to keep track of my books when they have two categories (read & unread) & can navigate the read ones because I know they are at least near the general genre or color or area with the rest of the unread books (like by fantasy or sci fi or memoir) then just look through the ones that are turned around - It looks cool & just makes me feel accomplished - I let myself turn around a book even if I for instance just listened to the audiobook as well
This is fun! I'd be interested in knowing how you decide whether you'll keep a book after reading it?
Oh wow, I can't wait to find out your opinion about The Garden of Evening Mists, it's one of my all time favorite books! ^^
That's not bad at all! Don't be hard on yourself! :) I decluttered a lot of the books that I have read and don't intend on rereading, so my bookshelf is mostly books I haven't read now.
This video and the comments are so interesting to read! I see my bookshelf as more of an archive of my taste than a tbr collection. I hate owning books that I didn't like (have made many unhauls haha) and the only time i keep books i didn't enjoy is cuz is by an author I collect or part of a series where i liked at least one book. I try to always read everything i own, but to at least have one or two books i can look forward to
so excited to see a Malaysian author, Tan Twan Eng on your bookshelf! The Garden of the Evening Mists is one of my ABSOLUTE favourites and i can't wait for you to read it!!!
Speaking of Malaysian authors, I enjoyed Yangsze Choo's "The Ghost Bride" (5★). That's some great literature there.
I want to do this but reversed. Books I've read with spine showing and those I haven't pages showing. I personally like sprayed edges, particularly on special editions, exclusives, or fancy hardback editions. 💜💙 you've inspired me a lot recently, Jack 💜💙
He does that in this video too
You should sort the books spine-in by page color :)
such a fun video lol. Personally, at the end of it I would've taken all the unread books and put them on one shelf together to make one cohesive TBR shelf. That way, when you're trying to pick something to read, you can select right from the TBR shelf instead of hunting for a book among all your read ones.
All I want in life is to have this many books
Everytime I see Build Your House Around My Body in one of his videos I scream. I read it because of a women's prize video and fell in love with it. I *need* to know what are his thoughts about it 🥺
Getting a clearer overview and being able to sort and count all of my books is honestly what I'm the absolute most excited aboutwhen it comes to moving next week, I really can't wait to get all my books into our new flattttt
Keep these library videos coming!😄
Jack, I think we all know how futile giving yourself a book-buying ban is... 😂 The amount of times I've told myself that as well, yet ended up back in Waterstones not even 24 hours later...
I love you so much for this! 😭❤️
I'm so excited to see you organise the bookshelf in different ways :)
I’m too broke to have buying books as my hobby😭
Same! Most of my read books are either from the library (physical and online) or borrowed from friends 😂 Can’t really buy too many books in this economy
I find it so funny that you have read the entire bible, when a lot of christians can't say the same thing lol
Your wine to books analogy gave me great comfort. I’ve always felt guilty about buying books and not immediately reading them. I tend to buy very few books, rather using the library, and for those I do own, I rarely keep them after reading them. My “home library” consists of maybe 30 books and there are times when I feel that’s too many. Do you keep everything you buy? Or if you hate a book, do you get rid of it?
His two channels are literally my favourite booktube channels omg
This “over a thousand books” shtick has worn out it’s welcome, move on please.
oh you are going to hate my next month of my content i'm sorry in advance
@@jack_edwards Lol, thanks for the forewarning. As an actual librarian please at least stop saying that it is an official definition of a library, as it is not. In the United States in particular we have a problem in our schools where it’s argued that having classroom “libraries” is better and replaces having a centralized school library and librarian. No matter how many books in those classrooms they will never be libraries. A library is a curated collection of books that are purposely chosen for their width, breath and representation of all genres to fill the needs and interests of all readers. Librarians are charged with buying and suppling their libraries with the best books in all areas, even ones that they may not be interested in or be biased against. It is created for the audience, not the individual. In the classroom there are a collections of books, but it doesn’t make it a library, they will never have the width and breathed and curatorialship of a true library and are not an adequate replacement. Especially in classroom book collections in the US there is a vastly under representation of nonfiction, which at least should be 50/50, which it almost never is. As many people fall in the divide of preferring fiction vs. nonfiction this leaves out a vast number of students to be inspired by reading. Nor can it adequately cover the titles in all the areas that nonfiction encompasses. In the US libraries and librarians are greatly under fire at the moment. To be a librarian you actually have to have a master’s degree and that has been true since the 19th century. Conversely, it has only been relatively recent that public school teachers have been required to have masters degrees to be a teacher. So, while librarians have always had extensive and high level academic training to make book selections decisions, suddenly you have parents and principals wanting to make those decisions instead of the professionals whose expertise is that process. Librarians are highly skilled individuals doing a professional job that has very high academic standards and ethics, especially when it comes to intellectual freedom. They are in fact the first line of defenders on the war of intellectual freedom and we are being undermined and dismissed at every level. What you have is a personal library, a collection that is highly curated, but to your own very specific likes and interests, most of which seems to be fiction. To me a personal library can be a million books, or a handful and each tells the story of the person who assembled it. This idea of 1,000 is very disconcerting looking at economic disparity, privilege and access. I think of the The Book Thief and her meager, but all to important library of titles stolen or even pilfered from a graveyard. A child in Africa with a handful of books of their own in their house should be just as celebrated and uplifted for their personal library as those in the 1,000 plus club. This made up definition of what a personal library is really does no one any favors, it just creates a divide and very much an economic one. So, I throw down this as a challenge to you Jack and I’ll add another challenge as well. Collect and read more nonfiction. Even if it’s about authors, books and writing. A well rounded reader reads both, and I know that that’s what you are striving to be, a well rounded reader.
Jack's dedication to these videos are chef kiss
The gardening of evening mist is sooooo good!!!
I keep my unreads on a separate shelf above my bed, and putting them in their proper place in my main library is a very good incentive for my OCD brain to read them. Its super satisfying when the TBR shelf is empty, and means its time to go to the used book store again! My neighborhood has several "take a book leave a book" free bookshelves though and I purchase one book per month (I had to limit myself), so the TBR shelf is nearly never empty
So excited for you to read some of those books!!
Jack enjoying and playing with his new library is so damn wholesome.
I love sprayed edges! They’re so striking
I LOVE the idea of doing that organization!
0:27 quotes to live by😆 that’s a perfect way to explain it!!
This is going to help you read those TBR. Love this idea.
The random TBR idea is neat. I think you should keep it like that. Then when you read one of those book and place it back on your shelf you’ll be one book closer to having your library complete! ❤ Love you home library. I recently inherited a ton of books from my father in law who passed away. So now I am working on a home library as well. Most of the books he gave me I haven’t read but each one is an extra special treasure in my home.
literary alcoholism is my new favourite phrase and i will be using it every chance i get. thanks jack
your bookshelves are gorgeous jack !!