Well, July certainly seemed to fly by, didn’t it? It was a good month, though–Eric had a week’s vacation, during which we did nothing but relax. It was wonderful. Then last weekend I took on a huge book-related project that turned up something rather exciting…
For some time now I have wanted to start keeping track of my physical home library. I have a lot of books and before last weekend, although they were shelved, they were in no kind of order at all. My type-A personality was starting to get a little twitchy, so I buckled down and bought a program called Book Collector (this program does so many things that instead of listing everything here, I’ll just let you click that link and read about it on the developer’s website if you’re interested). One of the things I love about the program is that I can scan my books using an app on my smartphone, and it sends the books’ information directly to Book Collector. I have 630 books, and I only needed to enter about 30 or 40 of them manually, either because they didn’t have a barcode, or because the edition I own is so old that it wasn’t in the Book Collector database. It took me about five or six hours spanned over two days to scan all 630 books and make sure that all of their information was correct. That’s not bad at all. I also culled about 30 books that I didn’t really care about that I will donate to our local library.
As I mentioned, there were a few books that didn’t have barcodes and I had to get their ISBN numbers from their copyright pages. This is where the most exciting news comes in. As I was flipping to the copyright page in one of the barcode-less books, I found this:
Yes, that is exactly what it looks like. Although my name isn’t Betty, I have a signed edition of bell hooks’ Remembered Rapture! I already posted photos of this on Twitter and Instagram, but I am so excited about this that I felt the need to post it here, too. HOW GREAT IS THIS??? I originally thought that I purchased this book from our library’s book sale last October, but then I remembered that it came from Better World Books. I can’t believe someone gave this up, but I’m glad they did so I could own it. Thank you, Betty! Hahaha!
Moving on. Once I had all of the books scanned and accounted for, I decided to unshelve them, sort them, and reshelve them alphabetically by author. Oh my goodness, that ended up being a lot of work (but totally worth it). I have bookcases on two floors in this house, so rearranging meant doing a lot of walking up and down the stairs while carrying heavy piles of books. WHAT A WORKOUT. It took me about eight hours between Monday and Tuesday to get it accomplished, and my body is still recovering. Ha! I’m glad I did it, though–it looks great and my OCD got a much-needed outlet.
On to the stats…
Here’s a look at the reading I accomplished in July:
Number of books finished: 14
YTD: 80
- The Absolutist, John Boyne
- Domestic Violets, Matthew Norman
- The Fire Next Time, James Baldwin
- Notes of a Native Son, James Baldwin
- Zazen, Vanessa Veselka
- A Prayer For Owen Meany, John Irving
- Lady Oracle, Margaret Atwood
- Shadow Show, Sam Weller and Mort Castle (editors)
- Dare Me, Megan Abbott
- The Magicians, Lev Grossman
- Graceling, Kristin Cashore
- A Confederacy of Dunces, John Kennedy Toole
- The Fellowship of the Ring, J.R.R. Tolkien
- The Two Towers, J.R.R. Tolkien
Number of books in progress: 4
- Ulysses, James Joyce (slow going, but so worth it)
- Ulysses Annotated, Don Gifford
- The Return of the King, J.R.R. Tolkien
- Melmoth the Wanderer, Charles Robert Maturin
Number of pages read: 4,904
YTD: 28,096
Books reviewed:
- The Absolutist, John Boyne
- Graceling, Kristin Cashore
- The Yard, Alex Grecian
- Zazen, Vanessa Veselka
- The Magicians, Lev Grossman
- Shadow Show, Sam Weller and Mort Castle (editors)
I’m reading so much faster than I can review, so I have quite a few reviews to catch up on. Sigh.
**I’m using the Daytum website to keep track of my reading stats this year, so you can follow my progress at any time by visiting my Daytum profile.
Reading Challenges progress:
- Back to the Classics Challenge: 0/9 (YTD: 5/9)
- Mount TBR Reading Challenge: 1/40 (YTD: 12/40)
- Chunkster Reading Challenge: 2/14 (YTD: 13/14)
- End of the World Reading Challenge: 4,049 (YTD: 21,852)
- The Classics Club: 9/100 (Total)
- A Non-Fiction Adventure: 8/130 (Total)
**You can follow my progress and learn more about each challenge under the Challenges tab in my menu bar.
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Ashley (my 11-year-old daughter) is participating in two of the challenges with me: the Back to the Classics Challenge and the Mount TBR Challenge. She doesn’t have a place to review the books she’s read, so she’s just doing the reading and keeping track of her progress in a notebook.
Here’s a look at what Ashley accomplished in July:
Number of books read: 12
YTD: 64
- The Hobbit, J.R.R. Tolkien
- The Clue in the Crumbling Wall (Nancy Drew), Carolyn Keene
- The Mystery of the Tolling Bell (Nancy Drew), Carolyn Keene
- The Mystery of the Fire Dragon (Nancy Drew), Carolyn Keene
- The Mystery of the Ivory Charm (Nancy Drew), Carolyn Keene
- Cirque du Freak (Manga #1), Darren Shan
- School of Fear, Gitty Daneshvari
- Theo Boone: Kid Lawyer, John Grisham
- The Phantom Tollbooth, Norton Juster
- The Hero For Wondla, Tony DiTerlizzi
- The Borrowers, Mary Norton
- The Fabled Fourth Graders of Aesop Elementary School, Candace Fleming
Number of pages read: 3,052
YTD: 18,826
Reading Challenges progress:
- Back to the Classics Challenge: 0/9 (YTD: 5/9)
- Mount TBR Reading Challenge: 0/50 (YTD: 16/50)
Happy reading!
August 2, 2012 at 11:49 am
What a great find!
August 2, 2012 at 10:27 pm
Woot!
August 2, 2012 at 1:59 pm
WOW!!!!! That’s a whole lot of books. Kudos on organizing them!!! I have only a tiny fraction of that amount of books and I can’t even fathom trying to organize them suckers. LOL.
August 2, 2012 at 10:28 pm
It was A LOT of work. Thankfully, the program I bought allows me to print a list of my books, sorted however I want them. So I printed the list by author and then just went by the list. That made it a lot easier.
August 2, 2012 at 2:50 pm
I love your excitement for the autographed Bell Hooks book. Yay! You had a great reading month in July. I wish Ashley’s reading mojo would rub off on my kids. *sigh* It seems like the further we get into summer, the less they want to read. Knowing you, I’m sure you’ll get everything reviewed.
Happy reading!
August 2, 2012 at 10:30 pm
Thanks, Vasilly! Even if Ashley didn’t choose to read a lot on her own, we have a rule in the house that the kids have to read at least one hour per day. So even the teenage boy gets some reading done every day (he’s not as into it as the rest of us).
August 2, 2012 at 3:23 pm
I must say Heather, that though I am impressed at you reading rate, I am more impressed with Ashley’s reads. In Ghana we say that the crab does not give birth to the bird, to wit, a chip off the old block. She is good. I noticed that she’s into Nancy Drew, I’m happy because my son Cedric has read quite a lot of them and some Hardy Boys as well. Kudos, Ashley.
BTW, I love your amazingt find and you guys did a great job with the Classics Club. Let’s hope August is even more rewarding for you.
August 2, 2012 at 10:33 pm
Thank you, Celestine! I will make sure Ashley sees your compliment–I know she would thank you, too.
Thank you for the compliments on the Classics Club page–Allie, Jill, and Adam did much of the Site design and I agree that it looks fantastic. I’m glad we have a designated place for the club now.
August 2, 2012 at 3:52 pm
Heather,
I, too, recently realized I had a signed copy of a book! I was reading “Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil,” when I realized that the author had signed the cover to “Janie.” I don’t know a Janie, but my mom thought it was probably my grandmother, Janet, who occasionally used the nickname. It’s so much fun to find those little treasures!
I cannot WAIT to check out the Book Database (since I can never keep track of what I have and don’t have, especially when going to a library sale)! I actually set my books up in alphabetical order by author when we moved into our home a few years ago. But my books are set up in two sections: Read and To Be Read. Each section is in alphabetical order, and I feel your pain. Just wait until you realize how fun it is to shift alllllll of your books over and down to the next shelves when you buy a new book by someone like Atwood or Albom (since the book must go in the beginning of the shelf)!
I taught 5th grade for a few years, and one book that my students recommended, and I read the entire series, was the City of Ember series. Has your daughter read that? She might enjoy those if she hasn’t yet!
Rebecca
August 2, 2012 at 10:36 pm
Oh, wow… that’s an awesome find, especially since the inscription was probably written for your grandmother. Nice!
I had my books separated by read and to be read before this big organizing job. I printed a list of the books I haven’t read yet, though, so I at least have them separated on paper now. I’ve decided to work in any new books about once every three or four months–I’m hoping I don’t get tired of it. Hahaha!
August 2, 2012 at 11:02 pm
You always impress me with how much reading you get done in a month. I’m bowled over! Someday, maybe I’ll impress others too. Yeah, right. LOL! Ashley did great as well. Please tell her I said so.
That is a cool program. I’ll have to see how much it costs, but it’s probably beyond my budget. Did you know you can scan books onto Goodreads from your phone? They have the quick look-up, which I use when I’m at a book sale and I want to see what others thought of a book, or they have the Scan Many Books feature with automatic shelving. You just choose what shelf you want them on in Goodreads and then you start scanning. I didn’t even know they had that! I actually have all of my books cataloged in a Lord of the Rings journal that is falling apart. I’m in the process of transferring it over to another larger journal. I have to take it with me when I shop for books. If I don’t, I keep buying books I already have.
That is cool that you have that signed copy. It has happened to me a lot. I have a bunch of signed books that people got rid of. I’m always like, “I can’t believe they didn’t keep this!”
August 3, 2012 at 2:20 pm
Thanks, Michelle (from both of us)!
I did know I could do that with Goodreads (I have the app on my phone), but I keep track of everything I read there, even books I don’t own. So I wanted something that would keep track of just what I own. I know I could make a shelf like that on Goodreads, but the idea of a separate program saved on my PC appealed to me.
August 3, 2012 at 10:27 pm
Congrats on organizing your collection! It sounds like it was quite an undertaking, but if you’re anything like me you’ve got to be super relieved to have all your books nicely organized. I keep my TBR books separate from the rest of my books, and it is always so satisfying, when I finish a book, to place it in its correct alphabetical-by-author place
August 4, 2012 at 11:44 am
I was keeping my TBR books separate, but they were taking up an entire bookcase and I really needed that space for my organizing. Now I just have a printed list of them. Thanks, Leah!
August 6, 2012 at 5:18 pm
This is fantastic! I still do but I loved the Hobbit when I first read it. I hope your daughter enjoyed it.
August 7, 2012 at 9:59 pm
She loved it, thank you. We read it together as part of a readalong I’m doing of the whole LotR series. I hadn’t read it since I was a kid, so I felt like I was reading it for the first time, too. It was wonderful.
August 7, 2012 at 10:02 pm
That’s a great idea! It’s definitely something I’d like to do if I ever have children.
August 24, 2012 at 3:03 pm
I’m going to have to check that program out. I currently use both Goodreads and Librarything, but they each have a few shortcoming for tracking my collection.
August 28, 2012 at 7:20 am
I use GR and LT, as well, but like you said, they each have their shortcomings. After using it for some time now, I still like the Book Collector program.