I'm afraid that my night stand looks more like a lending library then a piece of furniture. It's covered with books and magazines. I always try not knock off 10-12 pages of something before I make a serious effort to fall asleep. Sometimes I don't succeed; I will wake up in the middle of the night with the book on my chest and the light still on. Reading materials on the night table includes 11 assorted fly fishing/tying magazines and
Major Reading Projects:
Dave Hughes Nymphs for Streams and Still Waters Excellent, Excellent, Excellent book!
Karel Krivanec Czech Nymph and Other Related Fly Fishing Methods Another very good book
Peter MacInnis 100 Discoveries: The Greatest Breakthroughs in History. This guy doesn't know anything because he fails to include the Parachute Dry Fly, the Double Haul and the Whip Finish.
John Kumiski Flyrodding Florida Salt Super great book if you are headed to Florida and need very specific where-to-fish information.
Minor Reading Projects:
The Freshwater Angler Series Fishing Rivers and Streams Nice, light reading with lots of pictures which covers some very important concepts. Got this at Hamiltonbooks.com at a very deep discount.
James Mannion Essentials of Philosophy For nights when I'm having trouble falling asleep. 3-4 pages and I'm out like a light.
Steve Dobbs The South Carolina Lawn Guide What can I say? My Burmuda grass keeps trying to die so it can go to a better place. I may have the only suicidal Brumuda grass in the whole world.
In answer to your question about book collections, I'm afraid that I fall into the category of "books before food." I've been collecting, reading and enjoying fly fishing/tying books since 1957 when my grandfather gave me a copy of George Herter's Fly Tying and Lure Making and Bill Blades' Fishing Flies and Fly Tying. I can't give you an exact count because of loans to friends and other books scattered around the house but I'm somewhere in the neighborhood of 380 books. A few of those are general fishing books but most are fly fishing and fly tying. I'm right around the same number for cookbooks and books on grilling/barbecue. Christmas, birthdays, and Father's Day are always celebrated with a trip to Barnes and Noble or Amazon.com. 8T