I'm currently working on a project to catalog all the books I own. I'm using a downloaded software called "Readerware" that's really working for me. What's scary is that so far I've plugged in about 600 books, and I'm only tapping the surface of what I own. This is going to take me the rest of the year... unless, of course, I get sick of it and stop halfway through, which is what usually happens to my big projects.

What's fun about it is going through all my shelves and finding stuff I've forgotten I had... and then finding that some random paperback I've got is selling for $50 at all these used bookstore sites. I have a couple of kids' books that are selling for, like, $250 apiece online. And it's not just bookstores jacking up the prices... I've seen them going for these amounts on eBay as well. I have all three Mary Bard "Best Friends" books, which I bought years ago for about 10 bucks each, and these things are like gold.

Of course the biggest percentage of my collection is worth next to nothing, but I can gloat over the 5% that speaks to my brilliance as a savvy book collector.

I'm about halfway through "The Shadow of the Wind" by Carlo Ruis Zafon and I'm really loving it so far. I was shamed into reading it because I bought it in hardcover at least a year ago, stuck it on the shelf meaning to read it, and then saw it in paperback this week at the bookstore. This happens to me a lot. I decided to stop "saving" books for the optimum perfect reading moment and just read the things. Anyway, this book is moody and atmospheric and makes me want to go wander around Barcelona looking for the Cemetery of Forgotten Books (which I would pay anything in the world to get into).