Years of reading

Dan Pelzer, who died in 2025 at age 92, left behind a 109‑page handwritten record of 3,599 books he read between 1962 and 2023.

Wow.

I started keeping count in 2013, but I also had a blog before that, and some journals. Digging though all that, I came up with 858 books. I'm currently averaging 60-70 books a year. He averaged about 60 a year.

If I'd kept a tally for 61 years like him and read at the rate that I am currently, I might have been able to come close to his total. Alas, late start. And while I was working, I read fewer books - in part because as a teacher I was reading the same books over and over each year. How many times did I reread To Kill a Mockingbird, Jane Eyre, The Scarlet Letter, Romeo and Juliet, and so on as I was teaching them? If I counted each rereading that could easily add 40-50 to my tally. But I don't count them, and even if I did, it would not be enough. 

If I keep up my current rate I'll have more than 2,000 books read by the time I reach his age.

Not even close to his remarkable total.

Pax et bonum