150 books

I am currently in the middle of a deep reading of The Count of Monte Cristo and I came across the following quote from Abbe Faria:

I had nearly five thousand volumes in my library at Rome; but after reading them over many times, I found out that with one hundred and fifty well-chosen books a man possesses, if not a complete summary of all human knowledge, at least all that a man need really know.

I have been thinking about this a lot for some reason. Over the years, I have given away hundreds of books. Slowly but surely, I have started to build back up a collection.

I have been pretty intentional about re-reading some of my favorites, The Count of Monte Cristo is a re-read, the first time was about 20 years ago. It would be an interesting exercise though. One will never read everything of value and revisiting books you have already completed is very important if the book entertained you or touched you deeply.

Could a library of 150 books capture all one needs to know?

It would be a nice thing to hand down to my children, if nothing else. And then they could create their own.