Perhaps you've heard of, have done it yourself, or have friend's who've tried, but it's been something of a fad in some circles, in recent years, to read 52 books during a calendar year- one per week.
I fell into the challenge; I always set a goal of one more book per year each year and two years ago, I read 51 books. Last year, even a few days early, I finished 52. I've got a fairly complex system I've been honing since college and it gets the job done exceedingly well (as long as I put in the reading time each day).
Law school might derail my goals for the foreseeable future. Indeed, I may have set the high for my life this past year. That's a bit crazy to think considering all that happened last year, but it seems unlikely that I'll get to 53 this year (though I'll try), which means I will only set my goal based on what I do this year. Who knows what that really means. In the end, I'm glad to have averaged 1 book per week in 2011. It will always be among my favorite years ever- perhaps my reading achievements will just be part of that. In any event, I thought, in honor of the sort-of accomplishment, I'd post the list, for posterity's sake (whatever that actually means...I don't know how much I want my kids reading blog posts from 2012 when they're old enough to read...).
| 1. The Gunslinger | Stephen King | 216 |
| Being White | Doug Schaup | 183 |
| My Name is Asher Lev | Chaim Potok | 350 |
| The Prayer Life | Andrew Murray | 128 |
| The Drawing of Three | Stephen King | 463 |
| Velvet Elvis | Rob Bell | 177 |
| Love in the Time of Cholera | Gabriel Garcia Marquez | 348 |
| The Restaurant at the End of the Universe | Douglas Addams | 217 |
| the Yiddish Policemen's Union | Michael Chabon | 411 |
| The Two Towers | J.R.R. Tolkien | 447 |
| Life the Universe, and Everything | Douglas Addams | 232 |
| Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix | J.K. Rowling | 870 |
| The Hunger Games | Suzanne Collins | 374 |
| Swann's Way | Marcel Proust | 444 |
| So Long and Thanks for All the Fish | Douglas Addams | 152 |
| God on Campus | Trent Sheppard | 184 |
| The Ragamuffin Gospel | Brennan Manning | 224 |
| The Wastelands | Stephen King | 420 |
| Catching Fire | Suzanne Collins | 391 |
| The End of Sexual Identity | Jenell Williams-Paris | 144 |
| The Giver | Lois Lowry | 180 |
| Mostly Harmless | Douglas Addams | 180 |
| Daniel Deronda | George Eliot | 883 |
| The Return of the King | J.R.R. Tolkien | 340 |
| Mocking Jay | Suzanne Collins | 390 |
| Justification | N.T. Wright | 252 |
| Me, Myself, and Bob | Phil Vischer | 260 |
| Radical | David Platt | 217 |
| Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince | J.K. Rowling | 652 |
| Of Mice and Men | John Steinbeck | 107 |
| The Golden Compass | Philip Pullman | 399 |
| Where Wizards Stay Up Late | Katie Hafner | 265 |
| In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower | Marcel Proust | 531 |
| A Midsummer Nights's Dream | William Shakespeare | 92 |
| Heart, soul, Mind, Strength | Andrew Le Peau | 195 |
| Jurassic Park | Michael Crichton | 399 |
| Wizard and Glass | Stephen King | 694 |
| The Symposium | Plato | 114 |
| The Writing Life | Annie Dillard | 111 |
| The Subtle Knife | Philip Pullman | 326 |
| Daily Quiet Time for Couples | David and Teresa Ferguson | 365 |
| The Invention of Hugo Cabret | Brian Selznick | 525 |
| Love's Labors Lost | William Shakespeare | 146 |
| Forrest Gump | Winston Groom | 248 |
| The Sun Also Rises | Ernest Hemmingway | 247 |
| When Love Comes to Town | Paul Louis Metzger | 275 |
| Wuthering Heights | Emily Bronte | 317 |
| The Lost World | Michael Crichton | 430 |
| The Whore of Akron | Scott Raab | 300 |
| Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows | J.K. Rowling | 759 |
| A Long Way Gone | Ishmael Beah | 217 |
| 52. Jesus Wants to Save Christians | Rob Bell | 181 |
The number on the left is the pages ( I copied that straight out of my excel sheet). It adds up to 16972....also a personal best (and I read War and Peace in 2010, so that's an excellent average by my own standards).
Maybe this post is just me bragging...I don't know. If nothing else, you'll know what I'm drawing from when I do my "best of 2011" post tomorrow. You won't want to miss that...it's always my favorite post of the year (and it goes back to pre-Wooster as something I post in some blog somewhere), which I hope means it's enjoyable for my readers.
Until then,
-Zack
"Follow me now as I favor the ghost"
-Sufjan Stevens
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