Caterina lists every book she's ever read

October 2, 2001 3:56 AM

Caterina lists every book she's ever read on her website (found via Follow Me Here). Her site reminded me of another site I found a few years ago, in which a guy listed every book he'd ever read since he was 8 or 10 or something. He'd even done a word count. Anyone know the URL of this site? I ran a google search and didn't find the site I was looking for, but I did discover that many other people keep lists of all the books they've read, including this reader, whose list goes all the way back to 1958.
posted by grumblebee (48 comments total)

this smacks of lonely person / closet psychotic

and that's because she claims to have read 'all' of shakespeare's works not just cause she knocked up that list
posted by Frasermoo at 5:02 AM on October 2, 2001

What's wrong with reading all of Shakespeare's work? I've almost done that. And I'm not lonely. And I'm only slightly psychotic.
posted by grumblebee at 5:19 AM on October 2, 2001

Judith keeps a list of books...
posted by machaus at 5:36 AM on October 2, 2001

The guy you're thinking of is Eric Leuliette. He began his 1,982 book on Thursday, American Terrorist. The page count is up to 427,607.
posted by rcade at 5:37 AM on October 2, 2001

Reminds me of a novel by Sartre in which a guy decides to read every book in a vast library and begins with the letter A. Of course years later, as he advances along the letters of the alphabet he discovers that many many news books have been added to the letters already covered.
Or: the critic/writer (can't recall his name) who, on his deathbed, pointed to a vast library in his room and remarked : I have read all those books and I still know nothing.
Or as Thoreau said: why read books when you can read Nature direct?
posted by Postroad at 5:59 AM on October 2, 2001

I remember reading a quite successful, old skool style web site where a chap described how he included such a list, and it brought him hits via search engines along with interesting correspondence. He extended the 'Lists' page and in came more traffic.
He recommended this as a way of getting more visitors.

Really can't remember who it was though.
posted by southisup at 6:04 AM on October 2, 2001

I've been trying to keep a list of the books I've read this year--I was curious to see how many books I read in a year and how often I reread certain things. It's a lot more difficult than you'd think it would be, and I've got about a month's worth of backlog.

Interestingly, most of the hits I get from search engines for that page are for the erotica and childrens books that I've read. One thing I really had to think about was whether or not to include said erotica on my list (as well as trashy romance novels that I read when I don't feel like thinking), or to exclude them--I decided to include them, because to not do so wouldn't give an accurate picture of my reading and wouldn't be honest.
posted by eilatan at 6:33 AM on October 2, 2001

The Sartre character you're referring to above is simple known as "the self taught man" from Nausea. That character turns out to have some psychological problems of his own, unrelated to the knowledge (you know what I'm talking about if you're read it) that he's gleaning.

At any rate, perhaps one of the reasons the list is kept, is that is also serves as sort of an outside list "just in case" for insurance reasons. If she owns all these books (or at least most of them) and were to have a fire, it's always nice to have an outside list handy in case you have to replace things given a bad incident. I keep a list of all the CDs and records I own, both for the above mentioned reason, and because I'm also slightly O/C (obsessive compulsive).

So there.
posted by almostcool at 6:35 AM on October 2, 2001

One gets the sinking feeling that this list is culled from English Lit, Philosophy and Secondary Education supplementary summer reading assignment. I read a LOT (2-4 books weekly, plus periodicals and newspapers - that's a lot, right? seems like it) and I haven't got through all of Shakespeare, let alone chewed my way past all that Neitzche. It smells - too many classics and Important Books, not enough genre, Oprah and flavor-of-the-month. Nobody reads this way.
posted by UncleFes at 7:53 AM on October 2, 2001

Nobody reads this way.

Actually she does. I've seen her bookshelves.
posted by heather at 7:56 AM on October 2, 2001

Hmph. I can buy books by the yard at the library sale twice a year, doesn't mean I read 'em. But I'll take it on your authority.

So what do you two classicists talk about over coffee? :)
posted by UncleFes at 8:44 AM on October 2, 2001

I think my favorite part of the list is this entry, under "Children's Books":

Paglia, Camille - Sexual Personae
posted by moss at 9:03 AM on October 2, 2001

me a classicist? did i say that? i think that the only book that caterina and i share in common is "ballerina bess."

i would never presume to foist my list on the world. it would be far to humiliating. my questionable taste in music extends into my questionable taste in literature.
posted by heather at 9:24 AM on October 2, 2001

UncleFes - from the opening page, she explains:
It's not all highbrow or middlebrow stuff either. Yes, I've read Chances, Lucky AND Hollywood Wives by Jackie Collins and a lot more pulp than is recorded here.

So there you go.

There's no way I could construct a list of every book I've ever read. We used to make once-or-twice weekly library pilgrimages when I was a kid, and it was a rare week I didn't check out all the books I was allowed. In college I made similarly liberal use of the library, and averaged four to five books a week. Of course this all disappeared when I got out into the adult world, and these days I'm lucky to get through a couple of books in a month...

-Mars
posted by Mars Saxman at 9:34 AM on October 2, 2001

"just in case" for insurance reasons

anyone made a claim on things like this? I have a couple of thousand records, i might as well tell the insurance company they are a mixture of yellow howler monkeys and dwarf pygmies.

i still say wierd.
posted by Frasermoo at 9:41 AM on October 2, 2001

Yes, I've read Chances, Lucky AND Hollywood Wives by Jackie Collins and a lot more pulp than is recorded here.

So what's the point of recording?? Why put the Neitzche and not the Collins? I'm a sci fi guy - I can say that I've read all of Phillip K. Dick's and Norman Spinrad's work, but if I fail to mention all the L. Sprague de Camp and Andrew Offutt, aren't I being a little dishonest?

Don't sell yourself short, Heather, there are all kinds of classics :)
posted by UncleFes at 9:44 AM on October 2, 2001

Actually, it's true that I've read all that Shakespeare -- during a year long Shakespeare class I took in college. I'd read everything for class except a few sonnets and the poem Venus and Adonis, so I figured, since I was almost finished with the whole damn book, I'd just read those too.

I actually enjoy the books I read. I don't think of them as "important books", just "good books". And yes Mars, I sure have read a lot of crap too. And happily.

Basically I've just Killed My TV and decided to read instead. Because I love to, and always have. The inspiration for the list came from Amazon and, well, Art Garfunkel. Speaking of questionable taste in music. Check his list out for some serious syllabus action.
posted by aniretac at 9:54 AM on October 2, 2001

anyone made a claim on things like this? I have a couple of thousand records, i might as well tell the insurance company they are a mixture of yellow howler monkeys and dwarf pygmies.

As a matter of fact, if you wish to insure a personal library, you must provide the insurance company with an itemized list, including approximate values. I really should do this, as there are c. 4,000 books in my house, but I keep cringing at the thought.
posted by thomas j wise at 9:55 AM on October 2, 2001

Check back on the list: Jackie Collins is proudly listed there. As well as "Bio of a Space Tyrant : Refugee" by hackmeister Piers Anthony. More salacious and inane pulp I've yet to encounter.

I actually did have to catalogue the design, art and typography books for tax purposes. You can write off your reference books, and take deductions for depreciation, etc., according to my accountant.
posted by aniretac at 10:01 AM on October 2, 2001

I don't know that I can remember all of the books I've read in my lifetime. Crappy memory. I find myself picking up books and halfway through realizing I've read them before.
posted by eyeballkid at 10:18 AM on October 2, 2001

One gets the sinking feeling that this list is culled from English Lit, Philosophy and Secondary Education supplementary summer reading assignment.

I know there's nothing like seeing Encyclopedia Brown books and Go Ask Alice on a reading list to make me feel like it's been forged to impress me.

So what's the point of recording?? Why put the Neitzche and not the Collins?

As Aniretac noted, she put in the Collins. I'd suspect much of the reason her entire pulp reading list isn't listed is that, even with a CueCat and Amazon-scraping software, it's hard to put such a thing together if you can't remember the title. I couldn't give you the names of the dozen or so Oz books I've read, even if provided with a title list.

And a number of people (1, 2, 3, my own humble 4) keep booklists, although usually they don't attempt to be a comprehensive, lifetime list.

If this thread has gotten you all het up to read something and you don't have a library nearby, you can always check out MarkAnd's fabulous Internet lending library.
posted by snarkout at 10:33 AM on October 2, 2001

Read her weblog. It's clear that she's an interesting and very well-read person. BTW, it's one of my favorite weblogs.
posted by rdr at 12:07 PM on October 2, 2001

rcade, thanks for the link to Eric Leuliette's site. UncleFes, while many people claim to read more highbrow than they actually do (and deny reading low or middle-brow that they do in fact read), there are SOME people who really do read nothing but classics. Why is that so hard to believe?
posted by grumblebee at 1:57 PM on October 2, 2001

Why is that so hard to believe?

Because I'm a cynical bastard :) And the fact that although I've met several people who claimed an all-classic nightstand, I've never met one who was actually telling the truth :D

I just question the motives behind the list. Again, stems from my being a CB.

I'm also starting to wonder after the motive behind the post. Do you all know each other? Because this sort of is starting to look like a self-post by proxy (well, hellooo there, "aniretac").

Just the way my mind works, means nothing.
posted by UncleFes at 2:53 PM on October 2, 2001

I'm also starting to wonder after the motive behind the post. Do you all know each other? Because this sort of is starting to look like a self-post by proxy (well, hellooo there, "aniretac").

fyi, fes, i mentioned the thread to caterina this morning after seeing it in my referrer logs. she had no idea it existed. i don't know grumblebee, nor do i know if s/he knows caterina. also, i can't imagine why caterina would self-post something like this, by proxy or not, what with the kind of reactions it garnered...i'm sure she *loved* being labeled as a "lonely person / closet psychotic" simply for documenting her reading choices.
posted by judith at 3:53 PM on October 2, 2001

No. I don't know anyone who keeps a book list. Nor do I know anyone who posts on MeFi (other than from MeFi).

I don't particularly champion "the classics." I'm for reading whatever you like. If you like the classic, read the classics. If you like Cosmo, read that. I don't believe in required reading.

But I am a little eccentric, and I do have some highbrow tastes. Though this is no longer true, there were a few years in my life when I didn't watch ANY commercial television. I owned a TV, but I only used it to watch PBS and movies on video.

I never pushed my "lifestyle" choice into conversation, but sometimes it came up. Usually, people responded by suggesting I was lying or being snobbish. No one believed the simple truth that I was simply watching what I liked. I wasn't pretending to like those shows. And I wasn't secretly watching other shows. And I NEVER thought my shows were better than other people's shows. I just watched what I liked to watch and didn't watch what I didn't like to watch.

Then I got married, and my wife introduced me to some network TV I'd never seen, and I liked it. So now I watch that too.

Also, when I was in college, my dorm had this sort of scavanger hunt. At one point, everyone on my team had to stop and sing the Brady Bunch theme or we weren't allowed to continue. I said (truthfully), that I didn't know the theme. No one believed me, because I am American and I was born in the mid 60s. But the truth is that we didn't watch The Brady Bunch in my family. Since then I've seen it, but I'd never watched it back then.

There ARE some people out there who are different from you.
posted by grumblebee at 3:54 PM on October 2, 2001

People's booklists were also discussed earlier this year in this other thread.
posted by gluechunk at 5:09 PM on October 2, 2001

Thanks, gluechunk. I was about to nominate myself as most redundant poster of the year, but having looked at that link, I think there's a subtle difference. Those links are to book review sites. Mine are to book LIST sites.
posted by grumblebee at 5:16 PM on October 2, 2001

I think there's an important distinction to be made between "academic reading" and "reading for pleasure" here. My thesis bibliography -- books that I've damn well read, every single dull 18th-century treatise and useless critical book -- stretches to about 25 pages. I knocked off about 100 books for my undergraduate essay on American Modernist poetry. But that's forensic reading, voracious absorption. And as any EngLiterat[us|a] can tell you, that sort of reading usually kills your capacity to read for pleasure. I've got a stack of "post-thesis" reading that I need to start on, and have no desire right now. Especially when Infinite Jest stares back at me whenever I look up from the monitor.

(I ought to move to London: it's such a well-read city because people stare into books rather than make eye contact on the Tube.)

As for my bookshelves, Fes: they're horrifically erudite. (In order, scanning the shelf in front of me: Pope's Iliad, Cormac McCarthy, Rilke, Perec, Montaigne...) Apart from The Bridges of Madison County, which someone sent me as a birthday present ;) And Jilly Cooper, who writes lovely, silly books...
posted by holgate at 5:30 PM on October 2, 2001

Anyway, the concept of "Every Book I Have Ever Read" can't help but remind me of Tracy Emin's most famous piece.
posted by holgate at 5:38 PM on October 2, 2001

there is a difference in listing all the books you own and all the books you've ever read.

i remember people making lists of all the music they ever bought, including information on what format it was on (7 inch, 12 inch, tape, cd) and when and where they had bought it. this is all very fine for personal use (i used to do that myself in some form) but what's the use of putting it on the internet?

what i do like is reading (amateur) reviews of books, cd's, concerts. even only a couple of lines about why you like something so much and would recommend it to others is so much better than just mentioning a title.
posted by dogfiction at 6:08 PM on October 2, 2001

Tired: burning books.
Wired: burning book lists (or book list keepers).
posted by jkottke at 6:09 PM on October 2, 2001

Being her flatmate, I kind of have the inside scoop here: we don't have a TV, and she mostly just reads. And I have never seen her read any pulp, but on the other hand, I have never seen her read any non-fiction. And I'm not sure why anyone would want to read fiction. That's just stuff that people make up!

loney person: no
closet psycho: ... maybe
posted by sylloge at 6:37 PM on October 2, 2001

Wired: burning book lists (or book list keepers).

and thanks for bringing us back to this thread

"my name is jessamyn and I have a booklist..."

"hi, jessamyn..."
posted by jessamyn at 7:55 PM on October 2, 2001

for the record, that psycho stuff was not me.

My thesis bibliography -- books that I've damn well read, every single dull 18th-century treatise and useless critical book -- stretches to about 25 pages.

Mine was 10, but (ahem) 8 point type. I skirted the 200 page maximum by skootching the margins and downsizing the fonts. Wee! It was a fantasy theme analysis of a novel, btw. Wanna trade pdf versions and bore each other to death? :D

As for my bookshelves, Fes: they're horrifically erudite. (In order, scanning the shelf in front of me: Pope's Iliad, Cormac McCarthy, Rilke, Perec, Montaigne...)

See, now THAT I believe. So maybe it's just prejudice against people I don't know. Caterina, please accept my apologies.

Now I'm going to get in on the fun! My nightstand, right now (left to right):
October 1 issue of the New Yorker;
The Cash Flow Quadrant, Kiyosaki;
The Home Brewer's Companion, Papazian;
Superior Restaurant Products, Fall Catalog;
Information Architecture for the WWW, Rosenfeld, et al;
Time, Love, Memory, Weiner;
The Neon Wilderness, Algren;
The Diamond Age, Stephenson;
Step-By-Step Landscaping, Meredith;
Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds, Mackay;
Active Server Pages, Corning, et al;
What Would Machiavelli Do, Bing;
Hero With 1000 Faces, Campbell;
Godel-Escher-Bach, Hofstadter;
The Richest Man in Babylon, Clason;
TV Guide, 9-29 though 10-5.

A classicist I'm not :) Tell me Sages, what does it reveal about the inner Fes??
posted by UncleFes at 8:30 PM on October 2, 2001

A classicist I'm not :) Tell me Sages, what does it reveal about the inner Fes??

The Home Brewer's Companion, Papazian

It reveals that you damn well better share the good stuff.

[list of all the books within arm's reach of my computer deleted out of self-restraint]
posted by snarkout at 8:43 PM on October 2, 2001

Ha! Snarky, you find your way to St. Louis, I got a bottle of fresh Kolsch with your name on it :)
posted by UncleFes at 8:56 PM on October 2, 2001

this smacks of lonely person / closet psychotic

Oh, ok. So now people who like to read, and/or chronicle important parts of their lives on the web are lonely / psychotic, eh? Sheesh. I quit. Motivation? What's the motivation for putting anything up on the web? To share, promote discussion, give people an idea of what you're all about, etc.

Christ. I've read almost all of Shakespeare too(still have to get to a few of the histories), and I love South Park and Kevin Smith films, and all manner of vacuous pop-culture as well. I don't see any great dichotomy there. You don't have to be a pretentious elitist to love literature, or even the *shudder* the classics. Just a human being, who takes a broad interest in life.

*goes to work on his own, long-delayed, booklist*
posted by jdunn_entropy at 1:07 AM on October 3, 2001

Re "classics": "classics".
posted by sylloge at 2:58 AM on October 3, 2001

"If you skip over the minor prophets and all the crap in Leviticus about haircuts, the Bible moves pretty fast."

A mildly amusing scuffle with the notion of "well-read".
posted by Opus Dark at 3:34 AM on October 3, 2001

sylloge: My hearty agreement. Dickens was a hack. I've given him three separate chances to stop sucking(in his uniquely pernicious, overly-verbose, bordering-on-maudlin way), and he's failed me every single time. Nevermore.
posted by jdunn_entropy at 3:57 AM on October 3, 2001

jdunn_entropy : That reminds me of the time I decided to give Tristram Shandy a chance, and gave it 50 pages to "get started". I missed the point, somewhat.

Holgate: I'll see your Tracy Emin and raise you Virgil Tracy. And the people on the Tube all seem to be reading, but they all read the same book - Captain Corelli's Mandolin or whatever its current equivalent is (I've read Corelli myself and enjoyed it for the period of time I was reading it and for the fifteen minutes after finishing it that it took me to reach the house of a friend who grew up in Greece in the 60s and 70s who was able to fill me in quite forcibly on de Bernieres' extensive and pernicious historical circumlocutions. After which it was less easy to have enjoyed) so I don't know whether they can be called well-read.

Sylloge: I've always thought that just because they call it "non-fiction" is no reason not to suppose that it's not still something that somebody "just made up", even if they have got photographs to prove it.

What a lot of negatives in that sentence.
posted by Grangousier at 4:30 AM on October 3, 2001

Oops. What happened to the Virgil Tracy link?
posted by Grangousier at 7:40 AM on October 3, 2001

I've been toying with the idea of starting one. I'm not sure what the point would be? To demonstrate my erudition? Show and tell? Boredom? After 4 years of college and a lifetime of reading, I've a pretty sizable personal library for a 22 year old and I want to catalog my books anyway. Of course, most of my books are packed away in rubbermaid containers and cardboard boxes in my dad's basement. One of the downsides to being a less-than-settled adult.

And hey, yes, a lot of the books are from college syllabi but a book read is a book read.
posted by CraftyHotMelt at 9:04 AM on October 3, 2001

I've been toying with the idea of starting one.

So have I. There was some discussion of the how-to aspect in an previous thread. Do any of you have any advice now that you have created your lists?
posted by eckeric at 9:31 AM on October 3, 2001

advice on creating a booklist? several of the lists mentioned in this thread (including mine) were created with some great new software now in beta. it's worth waiting for - the features & ease of use (as well as some interesting community aspects of the app) are really terrific. i think it will make a public debut fairly soon...
posted by judith at 10:25 AM on October 3, 2001

Thanks Judith! I had noticed the thank yous on the different pages, but I didn't realize that it you were all beta testing a future software thingy. I had been looking at readerware, but I would be thrilled if I could support the product you are using when it comes out of beta.

*puts cuecat back up on shelf*
posted by eckeric at 11:58 AM on October 3, 2001