The man who owned 50,000 books and read every one of them
B. R. Ambedkar's personal library at his Delhi residence, now preserved as a memorial, held approximately 50,000 volumes. He did not collect them for display. Visitors who examined his books after his death found them dense with marginal notes, underlines, question marks, and cross-references written in his own hand. He read with a pen the way a carpenter works with a chisel, the tool was always in contact with the material.