Since posting about Karl Lagerfeld's books some time ago, I've been fascinated by him and his library. And the number of books it contains. In a recent article in Vogue India (Sept. '09) about his new Parisian abode, there is talk of 300,000 volumes in his previous home, while the article below mentions 150,000 in his Biarritz mansion. The piece gives a good insight into his cultural consumption:

"He has devoted his existence to living as much as possible in the present, keeping himself attuned to trends, not just in fashion but in art, politics, movies, and music. “I go to Colette,” he says, referring to the eclectic boutique on the Rue Saint-Honoré. “I buy all the new things, I buy all the music magazines, listen to new music.”... “Karl reads everything, looks at everything,” the Paris fashion stylist Camille Bidault-Waddington says. “He’s permanently filling himself with independent culture and establishment culture, so basically he knows everything, and he’s like a sampling machine.” Lady Amanda Harlech, Lagerfeld’s “muse,” concurs. “He said to me once, almost in a worried way, that he has to find out everything there is to know, read everything,” she says. “The curiosity is ceaseless.”