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Amazon's 1,082-volume Classics Collection: $7,989
Carl Bialik from the WSJ writes "Who would buy 828 feet worth of books, for nearly $8,000, that would take 20 years to read at the rate of one title per week? And how much does it cost to ship? The Real Time columnists at the Wall Street Journal Online ponder these and other deep questions raised by Amazon's The Penguin Classics Library Complete Collection, whose sheer jaw-dropping enormity reminds them of e-tailers' wacky offers during the dot-com boom. 'We think the collection is a perfect fit for more than a few software engineers we've known -- smart, self-directed people who are eternally curious, yet abhor wasting time intellectually and can't hide their impatience with the fuzziness of liberal arts,' Jason Fry and Tim Hanrahan write. 'For them, here's a pre-selected, pretty comprehensive list of Western classics, assembled for purchase with a single mouse-click -- and available in a form that eschews frills for portability and ease of use. Think of it as Humanities In a Box. OK, a Very Big Box.'"
Unpossible
-- -- Warning. Do not stare directly at the sun.
Spelling and reading have very little to do with each other. I have an excellent vocab in real life but on paper, I tend towards many many many mispellings.
:/
Shrug, I didn't learn phoenics. I can't sound words out and regardless of how many times I see it, like all humans, especially those with good reading speed, I don't read entire words letter for letter, I recognise words by partials pieces and letter sequences.
Mind, I've re-read many books several times during that period so I wouldn't forget what was in them. I'm not boasting when I say I read that much in the least, if you go back to the beginning of that time period I prolly read closer to 8 hours a day.
I think the books with the highest number of reads by me would probally be Ursla Le'Guin's Earthsea books... or perhaps greg Baer's Eon. I'd say on the low side i've read each earthsea book 3-4 times and Eon i've read at least 4... and more I'd guess. So it's not all unique reads
In highschool I ran what would be considered a "disturbing" number of books to most people... I damn near failed alot of my classes because all I did was set and read... then I'd go home and read.
I quite literally read every single sci-fi, fantasy, horror, and romance novel the branch library where I live had and at one time was through a pretty healthy chunk of the main's fiction section (bout 1/3rd).
I just wish I had a photographic memory, then I wouldn't have the need to re-read to keep from forgetting pieces and parts of the books i love.
My "home library" consists of 8 10ftX3ft 5 shelf bookshelves. It's loading to breaking and I have several cabinets besides that fully loaded and boxes stored in the basement of encyclopedias and such.
Shrug, I love books and I love to read, I'm good at it... it's not that startling. How long a day does the average slashdotter spend on a computer? Bet it's more than 4 hours.
Shadus
Could this open some eyes and increase interest in alternative (Linux, Mac) offerings?