This weekend I’ve hidden from the heatwave on my comfy sofa and read Mark Hodkinson’s No One Round Here Reads Tolstoy: Memoirs of a Working-Class Reader.

It was splendid and made me decide to count my books. Mark Hodkinson has 3,500. I did a quick guesstimate before I began. I have lived in the same house since 2007. I brought some books with me when I moved. I spent some years studying while working full time and in those years read little for pleasure. In the pandemic years I read 110 books a year. My guesstimate was that I’d have 1,500 books.

I started by counting the books I have downstairs. I have a bookcase mainly full of DVDs but it also houses my Red Dwarf related books and the Books of Knowledge.

The Books of Knowledge spent many years on a shelf in my maternal grandparents’ living room. I can look at them and rebuild the entire cosy scene around them.

My next downstairs bookcase has some of my husband’s non-fiction in and my miscellaneous books.

Bookshelf three is my diary books and music books. I adore diaries, whether fictional or real, and the same goes for books about bands.

Bookcase four is my Christmas books and overflow miscellaneous books. The most recent Christmas book I’ve read is the lovely Christmas Past by Brian Earl. I’ve written three Christmas books and suspect I’ll write another!

I have some cook books, mostly inherited from my Nan or that I’ve has since I was young.

My final downstairs bookcase is the bookcase of Terry Pratchett books. I plan to re-read these when I retire or before.

The total number of books I have downstairs is 629.

I have a hoffice upstairs which is becoming steadily more book lined. I’m not averse to a bit of clutter.

Some close up shelfies reveal a lot of David Nobbs, Barbara Pym and Mass Observation books.

I have a fondness for Ladybird books because they were a treat given to me on a Friday by my Dad.

I have a largish unread book pile in my bedroom.

In total, I had 859 books upstairs. So 859 + 629 = 1,488 books. My guesstimate was very close to the actual number!