INTERACTION

Just been doing some stocktaking of my books, and this question occurred to me.

In terms of titles, it's Michael Moorcock, with over sixty books on the shelves, or in boxes, cupboards etc. Stephen King is in second place with forty seven titles, but his average book is much longer than the average Moorcock, so I reckon King is the author whose work I've had the most exposure to.

Anyone else?

_________________
http://trumpetville.wordpress.com
http://ttapress.com/blackstatic/casenotesblog/

Without a doubt, Philip K Dick. I must have around 30 titles, and have read all of them (with the exception of the one extracted from the "Exegesis". I find that stuff unreadable!).

_________________
http://www.scan-tech.co.uk/mikealx
http://www.myspace.com/veldtmusic
Folder printing high quality presentation folders

PDK for me too.

_________________
http://jimsteel.wordpress.com/

King by a country mile. I have all the books and all issues of his various comics. add to that the books about king and it takes up more than four shelves.

_________________
www.rosswarren.co.uk

King for me too..

I worked this out earlier in the year...

1. Michael Moorcock - 69
2. Terrance Dicks - 59
3. Grant Morrison - 48
4. Jack Vance - 45
5. Alan Moore - 38
6. Isaac Asimov - 38
7. Garth Ennis - 37
8. Piers Anthony - 36
9. Philip K. Dick - 31
10. Robert A. Heinlein - 27

_________________
Theaker's Quarterly Fiction

So tempted to go back to the spreadsheet and get it to calculate the page counts too, but I'm only half an hour away from the children waking up and requiring entertainment.

I can tell you, thanks to Goodreads' new stats page, how many pages I've read for the last few years:

2010: 37 books, 8200 pages
2009: 76 books, 17480 pages
2008: 141 books, 31454 pages

During 2008 I realised I could order comics through Birmingham Libraries' online reservation system, and read half a dozen a week for a while (until they ran out), so that year's tallies are unusually high.

_________________
Theaker's Quarterly Fiction

I used to total up word counts and keep all sorts of statistics back in the 70s, but then I took a step back, and restricted myself to simply listing books read. Mind you, if I'd had the technology you have now...

From a cursory glance, my best year was 78/79 when I read 200 books and 40,020 pages. I didn't count comics unless they were repackaged in book form as graphic novels. If I had then the total would have gone up by 2-300 in some years (I was a huge superhero geek at one time - still am, but with only enough time and money to pursue some of my vices) and most read writer would probably be either Stan Lee, Jack Kirby or Gerry Conway.

_________________
http://trumpetville.wordpress.com
http://ttapress.com/blackstatic/casenotesblog/

Stephen King for me, though I've read a lot of Neil Gaiman's stuff too (just wish he'd get those novels out quicker...!)

Wish I'd thought to keep a list of what I've read. It seems too sad now, starting one off at zero...

_________________
http://www.alisonlittlewood.co.uk

Yep, King too, though prefer junior's books lately.

King and Gaiman are about equal first for me too. The fact that I tend to get more than one edition of books I really like has probably upped the numbers too...

I have never kept a record of what I have read but I have more books by James P Blaylock and J G Ballard on my shelves and have read than anybody else. If M John Harrison could be more prolific I would read more of his.

Although I thnk I have read quite a bit of Shakespeare?

I have read Proust The Remembrance of Things Past which is one of the longest books ever?
Also Jame Joyce Ulyssess which was very long and I had to read Ullman's commentary at the same time page by page to make any sense of it. That really is two books at once in the correct sense of the word. But not Finnegan's Wake, couldn't get into that at all.
I think I may also have read all the novels of Virginia Woolf but mercifully nothing at all by Jane Austen.

I used to read and keep hundreds and hundreds of Marvel comics in my formative years. But now I would say I have more copies of Interzone than anything else?

_________________
http://paulwoodward.wordpress.com/

I've only read the one, but it felt like many, many more

Not sure about the longest book I've ever read. "Ulysses" is a contender, but I think it's trumped by huge tomes from people like Norman Mailer and James Michener.

_________________
http://trumpetville.wordpress.com
http://ttapress.com/blackstatic/casenotesblog/

Yes, I was once dragged kicking and screaming through "Persuasion". I'm afraid I'm with Mark Twain on the subject of Jane Austen!

I don't tend to go in for very long books; A.S. Byatt's "The Children's Book" is the longest I've read recently.

Paul, I believe MJH is currently working on a third book following on from "Light" and "Nova Swing".

_________________
http://www.scan-tech.co.uk/mikealx
http://www.myspace.com/veldtmusic
Folder printing high quality presentation folders

I think the longest novel I've read is The Count of Monte Cristo (in French, as well - took me ages), though that was in three volumes.

The longest novels I've read in a single volume are:

1. Bone, Jeff Smith, 1332 pages.
2. Executive Orders, Tom Clancy, 1296 pages
3. Imajica, Clive Barker, 1136 pages

I'm including Bone, though it's a graphic novel, because otherwise I'd have to admit to Battlefield Earth in third place.

The longest book I own is Historiettes Vol. 2, by Tallemant Des Reaux, 1728 bible-thin pages. Though Clarissa by Samuel Richardson, at a mere 1536 pages, probably has a higher word count.

_________________
Theaker's Quarterly Fiction