I own about 200, of which I've read just one cover to cover (Stean: Simple Chess, in case you were wondering). I guess I consider chess books as something to dip into rather than plow through.

This discussion reminds me of something I read in the FT years ago, in 'Lunch with the FT' or some such. FT was interviewing some heavyweight European intellectual in his library. Interviewer boggles at the thousands of books on the shelves, asks said heavyweight if he's read all of them. No, comes the reply, I've only read five. What, only five?? Yes, but I've understood each one very, very well 

I own just about 100 books.  Endgame books and welll anotated game collections outnumber opening manuals. I've quite a few openings books on e4,e5 (collected without much thought). This has resulted in owning two of the worst opening books ever written (McDonald on the KG and Lalic on the Marshall Attack). But for other openings I am more reluctant to buy new items.  I rather look for books that provide valuable commentary on strategy and independent analysis rather than the latest DB-output. Favourit authors on openings: Joe Gallagher (KingsIndian), Mathew Sadler (On the Queens Gambit/Slav/Semi-Slav), Rowson (on the Grunfeld), King/Ponzetto's Master @@!### series and Watson (on the Benoni).
And of course all chesspublishing authors....

I've worked through the game-collections, but only partly through the endgame manuals (looking for methods rather than trying to memorize thousands of examples. Although I am working through the latest book by
Müller systematically as I find I dont require a board to go through it.

It's hard for me to count the number of books (or chess books for that matter) that I own.  I have one book case (six shelves, each capable of holding from 20-40 books) devoted to chess, but my study is piled with books that I've used recently.  I also have books on loan to friends.  So I conservatively guess that I have more than 300.  I probably have more than 500.  But I have friends who have thousands of chess books.  

Alexei Shirov reportedly didn't have any chess books, or even a chess set for the first six months in his new place in Spain.



It's not how many chess books you have, but how much you get out of the books you have.

At one time my library was up to slightly over 200. I sold most of them, bringing the total down to about 40. Now, however, its back up to almost 200, along with about 30 cds and dvds, not counting Chessbase Magazine. Now I simply accept that it has become a collection more than anything.

come on guys, If you're gonna be chess nerds be REAL chess nerds! I keep all my opening books sorted by ECO code. 

That way I can always spot when some patzer who doesn't know the ECO system has borrowed a book, and put it back in the wrong place.

574.
Shelved in colour order.

Way too much
Around 30 right now, I've read maybe 10-12 of those. 
Some of these books are on openings I don't play,
but I still want to have them, because I still don't know if I will change my mind and want to change my current repertoire, and if I ever change my repertoire, the openings covered in the book are serious contenders for replacement, although right now, I really think I have found myself and I have aquired a broad knowledge on openings, and I cannot really believe I want to play something different one day. And tbh. I don't hope it will ever happen , just costs too much energy and ratingpoints to take up new stuff, by now I have tried out really enough, and I shouldn't try out anything anytime soon

I am curious as this is a chess opening theory site and a publishing outlet... how many chess books do you own? It is not a contest just pure curiousity. I'll start.... 119 I've read about 20 of those and leafed through the other 100 picking out chapters relevant to my study or interest at the moment.