When were were first together 30 years ago my daughter counted his books on shelf in livingroom, lounge, whatever and there were 3,100 They are still there, different house same shelves. Its surprising just how many books can fit on a shelf, try counting yours. I can't be bothered to count them - maybe 4,000 but we have many in large plastic boxes in spare room I have asked him to get rid of them but like many men he's a collector. have just done a guestimate by counting in roughly tens on bookcase in lounge and there are 2,000 plus. DH has worked as a countryside officer and natural history curator for over 40 years and along with studying wildlife, lecturing and giving talks he has written papers studied and written books himself re wildlife. Many of these books, in fact most, are to do with Natural History. His other collections are World War 11, RAF, Trains, Biographies, the majority of the books are non fiction. Then there are my books, mainly non fiction, cookery, gardening and wildlife.
We have a moderate sized house Galen but a long lounge of which one wall is taken up with bookshelves. I love them and love it. I was amazed when I first saw his collection but fell in love with him anyway. Try counting like I say and those with large collections of books with be surprised. It doesn't take so many bookshelves to house 2-3000 books. Like I say I have just guestimated and there are over 3,000. If I could I would put a pic up, feel unbelieved but hey, I know the truth and I would never use Kindle. Love the feel of books.