Yesterday afternoon, just for kicks, Andy and I were figuring out how long it would take to read all the books Eisenbrauns lists. Now, as booksellers go, we don't have a large inventory since we are so specialized&mdashonly about 15000 titles; there aren't a lot more books than that in biblical studies and ancient Near Eastern studies.
Here's what we came up with:
The average scholar has a 40 year career, from graduate school until retirement (give or take a few years). That means they would only have to read 375 books a year to read all 15,000 titles. Just one book a day. That's it, only one book a day. A tall order, but perhaps manageable.
But, we add about 1,000 titles per year to our inventory. You would have to read those too, if you want to stay current. No problem! You only have to read 19 books a week. A mere 3 books a day, allowing for a sabbath rest of only one book!
So, to get a handle on all the books we list, you would need to read 4 books per day, 6 days a week for the next 40 years. Too much you say? And you call yourself a scholar :)
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2 comments:
An awe inspiring challenge James!
But seriously, I spend a fair amount of time among books, as you know, and I know that I hardly ever read an academic book in the sense that I think you mean. I routinely read IN dozens of books in a day, a chapter here, a section there, a reference to follow up, and so on. But I really cannot remember the last time I read an academic book from from to back, in the order the chapters are presented in the table of contents. Maybe this is a flaw in the way I work, but I suspect it is rather common. Fiction? That's another matter!
Chuck,
You are right, of course. I, too, read in myriads of books; it's one of the joys of working here :)
I suspect that other scholars/wannabes (like me) are much the same—can you imagine reading the 2 volume Morphologies of Africa and Asia? Ugh! Although there are probably those who will...
James
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