If you read a book a day, it would take 60,000 years to read every book currently cataloged in the Library of Congress. Not sure whether or not that figure accounts for leap years or not. Still, can you imagine? Would you want to live 60,000 years in order to read all those books (let’s pretend that the Library of Congress is actually your TBR pile)? And just think, in those 60,000 years, there will be more books added. A person could never catch up!
I gleaned the above piece of information about LOC from C-Span, of all places. But the really awesome thing is that they have a brand new 90 minute documentary on the LOC and you can watch the complete version of it online for free. I know what I will be watching this weekend.
But back to the 60,000 years. Seriously, would you want to live that long? And what if you didn’t want to read a book a day, what if you only wanted to read a book every couple of days? That would add thousands of more years. And you wouldn’t get to reread anything either. I kind of like the idea of having 60,000 (or more) years so I could read all the books I want to. What if you couldn’t die until you had read everything you wanted to? On the day you finish a book and said, “that’s it, I’m done reading. There are no more books I want to read,” you then fall into a deep sleep and quietly pass away, never to open your eyes and read another page again. Would you want that life? Part of me says, “heck yeah!” and part of me says maybe not. I’m not certain I want to see what this planet is like in 100 years much less 60,000. But then I kind of want to know if humanity ever gets its act together. So I would take that 60,000+ years and if things got really bad or I got tired of it all, I’d only have to say the magic words of release. The hard part would be saying them and really meaning it.
I managed to miss that special on TV even though they sent me an email reminder.
Hmmm. I’m reasonably sure that there are a number of books in the LOC that I’d gladly skip. So we could easily be down to 20,000 years.
I agree with Carrie – surely there are some we could skip.
One of my book group members has an 80 year-old neighbor who is in a book group that reads a book a week. I have seen their list and they are not easy reads – a great mixture of classic, new, non-fiction and fiction. Good for them!
It certainly would be interesting to see what humanity might be up to in 60,000 years, if anything. Presumably by then we would have learned the don’t-destroy-the-environment-you’re-dependent-on lesson…
Carrie, well it is online now so you don’t have to miss it
pburt, a book group that reads a book a week? That’s hard core!
Sylvia, wouldn’t though? Would we have reached sustainability or would it be a Mad Max kind of world? Or maybe everyone will be living on Mars because we’ve messed up earth so badly. I’m cautiously hopeful about reaching sustainability.
Remember to ask for eternal youth when you’re getting that immortality, otherwise you’ll have made the classic msitake
Your ideas on how death would come to the reader reminded me of Thursday Next’s grandmother, finishing that last dullest book in the world.
My sanity would definitely not hold up to 60,000 years! I’ll take refuge in the notion that most of those books are surely not worth my time…although I have to admit to a twinge of regret for what I’m missing.
This is freaking me out!
That is a loong time…and pretty depressing – I want to read everything RIGHT NOW! Sigh.
I really hate this number – it makes me sad. I want to read everything RIGHT NOW! Sigh.
What if we narrowed the number down to just fiction? And I am a slow reader, so I would need more than the 60,000 years. It sort of makes me tired just thinking about it. But it does help put my own wee little stack of books that make up my own TBR pile–it pales in comparison. Maybe it’s not quite so unmanageable as I thought–so thank you for that.
An overwhelming number. The other thing to do, that I have done, is to work out how many years I’m likely to live – say until I’m 80 (to be generous or cautious depending on your point of view) -and then how many books I read on average a year. Use this to figure out how many books I am lively to read between now and then and it’s horrifyingly small. I almost feel like giving up except, I wouldn’t because that would be even more horrifying!
How many books I am LIKELY (not lively) to read, of course!
My ambitions are far more modest — what I would like is to have no book in my house unread. And if it means giving away books I know I will not read, then so be it. I have a beautiful fantasy that once I have read everything in my house, I will then, and oh-so-carefully, introduce into my house, one at a time, the books that come next, but one at a time only. I will read that one book, finish it, and then bring the next in. My great hope is that I will die in the interstice between the just finished book and the book about to be read, which I imagine is the nicest of all places to be.
Yes but think how many of those books are law textbooks, or bible commentaries or by people whose writing you’ve never got on with. I bet if you winnowed it down, you’d be left with only about 10,000 years you’d have to live. Much more manageable!
Stefanie, I came across an article that says similar thing but takes a different approach. Do check it out here. I’m sure you’ll have fun reading it.
Oh Arti, that’s getting way too depressing! I can feel the stress levels rise as I type…
That sounds fascinating. I had a sobering moment about a year ago when I approximated the number of books I would be able to read before I died. (Slightly morbid, I know.) I’m thirty now, so if I live until I’m 90 that’s 60 more years of reading about 60 books a year, so I have 5,400 left. Thinking in those terms definitely helps me pass on a book that isn’t working for me after a few chapters.
LOL Sarah … I hate to depress you but 60 years by 60 books is 3,600! (I think you multiplied your 60 books by 90 years so I think you’d better start that healthy living now!)
Haha! I totally did! I’ll call it fatigue, but really it was wishful thinking:) Good thing I write about books because if I had to write about math, we’d be up a creek!
I’m looking forward to an afterlife in which there is no such thing as time and an endless supply of nothing but books i’ll love. I’ll let you know if it happens
!
Those are some fascinating stats. Knowing how slow I read even at the best of times…. hmmm… it would take me a good five times, [300 millennia] to get through all those books. And think of how many new ones would be written during that time. Given the rate of average human cessation of life, I will never even get through my own current “To Read” list — the books that are piled high all over my apartment. I must quit thinking of this or I’ll get sad!
I definitely want to know what’s going on 60,000 years from now, if anything, but I would like to get just a glimpse of it on my own terms — i.e. not be stuck living there. Same is true for 100 years from now. But reading a book a day all those years? Impossible, and I’m not sure I’d like that life. If I’m going to live a ridiculous number of years, it definitely has to be on my own terms
Emily, LOL, I suppose after 60,000 years one might begin to go a little loopy. Still, I don’t think I’d mind testing the limits
Em, is it the number of books and how long it would take to read them, or the idea of living that long? Or maybe both?
Jennie, I know, it is a sad number. Even if I wasn’t going to read every book in the LOC, just my local library has more books than I could read in a normal lifetime. sigh.
Danielle, I like how suddenly your own TBR pile doesn’t seem so large
We are ever optimistic about how much we will be able to read, eh?
whisperinggums, I have made that calculation before and regretted it because it is such a small number. However, it does make it easier to pass by mediocre books.
Bloglily, I know that fantasy! I’ve had it too. Unfortunately I have not the fortitude to bring it about, especially since I have so many unread books in my house it would be years and years before a new one would appear on my shelf.
Litlove, oh yes, 10,000 years is much more doable!
Arti, that’s a good article, isn’t it? I caught it not long after it was published and it still makes me a little sad when I think about it.
Sarah, it is a very sad day when we realize that we will never be able to read all the books we want to. Yet, I continue to hope that maybe, just maybe…
Emily B, yes, please let me know if there is an afterlife, then I won’t have to worry about how many books I read in the lifetime!
Cirpriano, you and I will meet up in a couple millenia and compare notes. Do you think we’ll still be blogging them?
Dorothy, we need Doctor Who’s Tardis so we can take a trip! Reading a book a day would get to be too much, wouldn’t it? I’d definitely have to do it at my own pace which means I’d need a lot longer than 60,000 years.