Challenge: 50 Books discussion

I'm curious as to how people deal with books that contain multiple "books." For example, when I read a trilogy in one volume, I think of it as one book, but does that make sense? What if you were reading the complete works of Jane Austen in one volume? It becomes less obvious...

What made me think of this is that I'm reading the Basic Works of Aristotle for school right now. The Metaphysics, one of the works in the book, could easily count as a book on its own. But I find myself wanting to read all 1500 pages of the book and count it as one, even if it might stop me from reaching 50 books.

Opinions?

I read the Night World Volume 1 by LJ Smith which has 3 books in 1. I posted that I read the story, not the whole book. They were intended to be read seperately at one time so that is how I am posting them.

I read The Chronicles Of Narnia which chronicles the seven books and I counted it as one book. I'm counting books by how many physical books I read. This makes reading a little more challenging but I read 6 books in January so it's looking good so far.

Do whatever you prefer - no rules here - just the ones you set for yourself. I personally would count them as separate since they were created separately and could be bought separately. You just happened to come across them in a collection.

I agree with Molly. I have the complete works of Jane Austen in one book but I would count each story as a book because it was not the authors intent for them to be read as such. I think the same would apply to a series for the same reason that they would not have originally been published all together.

I agree that it is the author's intent that is important in determining if works are separate and thus separate books for counting purposes. However, there are some exceptions for common practice used to count books. For example, J.R.R. Tolkien wanted Lord of the Rings pub. as one volume but the publisher made it divided into three volumes. In this case I would count each of the volumes separately but maybe even also count the whole as a book too. It's tricky but author's intent should usually prevail.

I would also count them separately; I have several books that have 3 books in 1, and they are huge! I read Stephen King's The Stand in high school for a class and it counted for 3 books, even though it was really only 1 book but it is huge. But if I read that now for this challenge I would count it as 1 book read, but that wasn't your question, I am just rambling ;)