I have read on the net that there are roughly 158,464,880 unique books in the world as of 2023.
I have also read that 10% of all books are fiction. (Source: ISBN The World’s largest book database).
That means that as of 2023 there are 15 million fiction books available.
It also means that if you read a fiction book everyday for the rest of your life, it would take you 41.000 years to read all books that are in existence today.
Also: 2.2 million new titles are published every year, let’s say 10% of those are fiction, as per the statistics above: that’s 220.000 new fiction books are written every year.
Obviously, not all books written in ALL languages are translated into all major languages, but still.
This blew my mind because sometimes I find it hard to “find a book to read”. It made me realise that no matter what happens in my life, there will always be books to read. I use my local library (small city in Spain), so books are free. I think this is the case for most of us (unless you live in a country where there are no libraries). So basically, you can entertain yourself for the rest of your life for free, if you want to.
This opened my eyes because I have already watched all the movies and TV series I like on Netflix, HBO, Prime and Filmin. I run out of stuff to watch, but I will never run out of stuff to read.
Currently reading: “Un mal nombre” by Elena Ferrante (second book from “My brilliant friend” saga) and Murakami´s “Sputnik, mi amor”.
I hope this post was useful to someone!
Have a great day and USE YOUR LOCAL LIBRARY!
by penny-dreadful-yves