The book event horizon

Mostly books I won't re-read, as these
four shelves are books wot I wroteWhenever we have tradespeople in the house, they tend to point to my wall of books and say something like 'Someone likes reading.' Leaving aside the sad reflection that having a few bookcases is now comment-worthy, it brings to mind another slightly depressing thought.

I probably have about 1,000 books on the shelves (I halved the collection when we moved 6 years ago, but it grows back), almost all of which I have read, but I keep them in case I want to re-read them.

Now, let's say I've got about 20 years of reading left in me. I read about 60 books a year, but of those 2/3 are new. So that's 20 re-reads a year. So, realistically, at maximum, around 400 of those books are going to be read again. Which seems a shame.

Note that I'm not advocating throwing most of them out. I don't know which I will re-read, and I want a choice. (A friend recently said he re-reads The Lord of the Rings every year. It seems such a waste if you do have a book event horizon looming.) However, what I have started doing is if, like the book I'm re-reading at the moment, I think 'I'll certainly never read that again,' I do dispose of it, if only to make a bit more room on the shelves.