HOW many inches?

I had the very great pleasure of attending World Fantasy Con last year, and fortunately my friend Laura warned me about the bag of books given to attendees. Free books?! How wonderful! But oh my aching shoulders - what a heavy carry-on bag and suitcase! 

While in the midst of unpacking, I realized yet again that our bedroom bookcase was absolutely stuffed, and my bedside table already moaned beneath two piles of books stacked to the edge of the lampshade. I put away my suitcase and wandered into our office. Nope, that bookcase was also full, as was the one in the hallway, and there were even three unread books on the coffee table in the living room. I shrugged and headed back to the bedroom, where I stacked the new books between my dresser and chair.

Then I wondered how many inches of unread books I really had.

For a true picture I would need to include the unread books on my Kindle as well as the ten or twelve books tucked here and there on the bookcase. Oh, and then there’s the thirty-some odd books I have noted on my Goodreads “to-read” list – books I know I want to read but haven’t yet purchased. Could I count those? Should I? My husband has a stack of books that he’ll eventually share with me, and there’s usually at least a few books stashed beneath the Christmas tree as well as those three on the coffee table.

Hmmm. Forty-four inches beside the dresser, approximately twelve inches on the bookcase, seventeen inches on the bedside table, and on my Kindle I’d estimate at least twenty-five inches. My husband has to have more than twenty inches, and…

…books, book, BOOKS!

How many inches do you have?

-- Folio

Originally posted in November 2011