This is a hypothetical thread. Here is the choice: would you rather be the master of 10 books, a literary expert on them, know them completely, or would you rather have read 1,000 books and know them in a general sense? I bring this up because I have a serious book addiction. I am a junky. I am always looking for new books to read. Sometimes I wonder if it would be better to have less books and to know them completely than to have so many books.
I would rather read many, but be an expert on one or two. That way, you have your favorite that you know in and out, but y ou've also had the experience of reading many. But if it limited to strictly the wording of the question, 1000 over 10.
Reading is one of the most important things in life. It should be to us like eating and drinking. But we should not let it stand in our way as an obstacle; to limit our freedom in life, or to imprison us.
I think it is better to read many books. You will have a broader range of knowledge that cover many different subject matters than just having read a few books.
I'd say it's better to read as many as you like, however, if you're working your way through some of the classics you could always read sparknotes as you go along to get a better understanding. I'm currently doing this with Les Miserables.
Actually I think we should be somewhere in the middle. Read a lot, but come back to the books that really mean somethign to us. Isn't that what most people do? You don't need to choose at all!
If you read a thousand books, and then go back and re-read the first ten, the perspectives you gained from the other 990 books will inform your understanding of the first ten in ways that you could never have acquired by just reading the first ten.
I'd go for 10. That's pretty much how I play it already. I'm not a big fan of reading. I have a small group of books that I like and use for inspiration, and I think I know them well. Reading long books generally bores me.
In my ideal world I'd like to read as many as I could, but also have time to go back to the ones that I really loved and read those over and over again because you notice so much more then. Unfortunately that doesn't work because I'm reliant on libraries for my books as they're so expensive. I suppose that means that I think we should read the thousans but savour them as much as we can.
Yeah, I also don't need to 'know' a book inside out or be an 'expert' on it. I'd rather explore and read new stuff, and sometimes return to re-read those I thought were superb.
Definitely 1000 books. I try to read a book a week (and for the past two years, I have met that goal, on average, using Goodreads to update my status), and I'm not sure what I would do with only being able to read 10 books. I'd definitely consider myself a bibliophile, and to only read 10 books would just be quite a tragedy. Though, I wish I was able to be the master of 10 books, but I'd still want to be able to read my thousand.
I'd rather read a whole bunch. Of course, I like the books I know really well, but I don't think I got more out of them than the books I just know I enjoyed and vaguely remember. In fact, those are better sometimes because I can go back and read them again.
Like lemex said, why not both? I would read 1000 books, but I would have the 10 that just grab me completely and I will return to again and again knowing them inside out? This being said I'm a compulsive buyer who will see a pretty cover, read the title and if it catches me I buy it. I've brought a lot of books that aren't as good as they're covers and some very plain books that have been incredible.
I'm with Lemex. I've read many, many books, and of those there have been a small group that, for one reason or another, have really stayed with me. Question: why stop at 1,000?
Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell is a novel I've read so many times it's now a part of who I am, and I'm a unashamed Shakespeare and Dante geek. But yeah, why stop at 1,000? Also, these are just 'books', which is unbelievably vague. This must include collections of essays, plays, short stories and poems. I'm sure there is a lot more to The Complete Works of John Milton than just Paradise Lost so what sort of 'book' are we talking about?
Since literature can be interpreted in so many different ways, I believe that no one is an authority on anything. So being an "expert" on 10 books is sort of meaningless IMO. If I had to choose, I would pick the 1000 books, though I agree with Lemex et al. that people who really enjoy reading are going to read far more than a 1000 books in their lifetimes.
