Cheer and Jeer THC as he reads 80 books in 2012!

[The Hooded Claw]

Awhile ago I came across this thread by jbcohen:

http://www.kindleboards.com/index.php/topic,93836.0.html

He encouraged us to read 100 books in 2012.  That caught my imagination....Despite loving my Kindle, I do not read nearly as much as I used to.  A lot of that is because I am too easily distracted by web browsing or playing games on my iPad.  Time that would've been spent reading goes for those things instead.  Those are both okay activities, but I'd like to read more.  To make a long story short, I decided 100 books is perhaps too ambitious, that is two books a week, and some of my reading is history books that are pretty substantial.  I originally thought in terms of 75 books (one and a half books a week), but am shooting for eighty.

Another bad habit I have is wanting something comfortable that will be a decent read, so grabbing an "old reliable" instead of trying something new.  So I'm going to set a rule that I will only read new books that I haven't read before next year.  I'm going to make a couple of exceptions to that....I've been wanting to reread some classics, especially Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn.  Plus, I've been wanting to re-read a bunch of stuff from a mystery writer I like named Max Allan Collins (a LOT of his stuff has been Kindleized lately and offered at low promotional prices).  For the Twain books, and many of the Collins books, I haven't read them in a long time (teenager for Twain, 1980s for Collins) so I don't feel too bad about that.  The one comfort read I'm gonna allow myself is Sherlock Holmes.  I'll undoubtedly have to get a Holmes fix during the year, and why should I fight that?

They say one of the ways to push yourself into sticking with a resolution is to make public declarations about it, so I'm making that declaration here.  I will list each book I read here, and hopefully put down some comments about it.  It should make an interesting read (for me anyway) at the end of 2012!  And y'all are free to post comments about what I say, boo and hiss when I don't add at least one new book each week, or do anything else remotely appropriate for the topic....

Right now I'm reading Boone, by Robert Morgan.  Grabbed it on a promotional $1.99 price yesterday, and started it last night.  I'm only about 20% of the way through it, so I'm going to count this as my first 2012 book.  I'm happy with the book so far, and recommend it for anyone who thinks they might like a biography of Daniel Boone.  It also has a lot of incidental detail about the times as they applied to Boone.  I'm currently reading about Boone's first expeditions into Kentucky.  The biggest surprise so far has been that Boone was a great woodsman and had many talents, but he was a terrible businessman and sloppy about paying his debts.  A lawyer called him the most-sued person in his home county!  Still only $1.79 for the Kindle version as I post this!



Stay tuned for more as I progress reading through the year....


ADDED LATER--THE BOOK LIST FOR THE YEAR:

1.  Boone: A Biography, by Robert Morgan
2.  The Black Camel, by Earl Derr Biggers
3.  A Walk Around the Pond: Insects in and Over the Water, by Gilbert Waldbauer
4.  The Pacific War: From Pearl Harbor to Hiroshima, by Daniel Marston
5.  Temple Houston: Lawyer With a Gun, by Glenn Shirley
6.  Charlie Chan Carries On, by Earl Derr Biggers
7.  Making Sense of People:  Decoding the Mysteries of Personality, by Samuel Barondes
8.  Thicker Than Water (Blood Brothers), by Greg Sisco
9.  The Way of the Panda, by Henry Nicholls
10. The Door Into Summer, by Robert Heinlein
11. The Northern Lights: Secrets of the Aurora Borealis, by Dr. Syun-Ichi Akasofu
12. My Lead Dog was a Lesbian: Mushing Across Alaska in the Iditarod--The World's Most Grueling Race, by Brian Patrick O'Donoghue
13. Buffalo Bill's Life Story, by William F. Cody
14. The Physics of Star Trek, by Lawrence M. Krauss
15. Ring for Jeeves, by P. G. Wodehouse
16. Fly by Wire: The Geese, the Glide, the Miracle on the Hudson, by William Langewiesche
17. The Mating Season, by P. G. Wodehouse
18. The Authentic Life of Billy the Kid, by Pat Garrett
19. To Hell on a Fast Horse: Billy the Kid, Pat Garrett, and the Epic Chase to Justice in the Old West, by Mark Lee Gardner
20. The Road of Danger, by David Drake
21. The Sun and the Moon, by Matthew Goodman
22. Ten Little Wizards, by Michael Kurland
23. How to be a Villain: Evil Laughs, Secret Lairs, Master Plans, and More!!!, by Neil Zawacki
24. The Travels of Friar Odoric: 14th Century Journal of the Blessed Odoric of Pordenone, by Odoric of Pordenone
25. Swords and Deviltry, by Fritz Leiber
26. Majic Man, by Max Allan Collins
27. The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right, by Atul Gawande
28. A Night to Remember, by Walter Lord
29. The Scarlet Pimpernel, by Baroness Emmuska Orczy
30. The Earth Moves: Galileo and the Roman Inquisition, by Dan Hofstadter
31. The Man in the Yellow Raft, by C. S. Forester
32. Wide as the Waters: The Story of the English Bible and the Revolution it Inspired, by Benson Bobrick
33. Stolen Away, by Max Allan Collins
34. Swords Against Death, by Fritz Leiber
35. The Big Con: The Story of the Confidence Man, by David W. Maurer
36. Master Detective: The Life and Crimes of Ellis Parker, America's Real-Life Sherlock Holmes, by John Reisinger
37. Reserved for "The Crazy Years"
38. Damned in Paradise, by Max Allan Collins
39. Skulldoggery, by Fletcher Flora
40. Success Secrets of Sherlock Holmes: Life Lessons from the Master Detective, by David Acord
41. A Study in Sorcery: A Lord Darcy Novel, by Michael Kurland
42. The Killing Room, by John Manning
43. En Route: A Paramedic's Stories of Life, Death, and Everything in Between, by Steven "Kelly" Grayson
44. The Gulf Stream: Tiny Plankton, Giant Bluefin, and the Amazing Story of the Powerful River in the Atlantic, by Stan Ulanski
45. Tales of the Fish Patrol, by Jack London
46. Alcatraz: A Definitive History of the Penitentiary Years, by Michael Esslinger
47. A Question of Time, by Fred Saberhagen
48. The Sea Devil, by Lowell Thomas
49. God's Jury: The Inquisition and the Making of the Modern World, by Cullen Murphy
50. Professor Moriarty: The Hound of the D'urbervilles,  by Kim Newman

[Julia444]

What a noble goal, Hooded Claw!  Back before I had children I was able to read 70-80 books a year (that was also before the Internet and Kindles). 

But now I am lucky if I read 20 books a year, although I think my Kindle will help to advance that number; reading is just faster on Kindle.

So go for it, and keep us posted.  It's January 2nd, and you only have 79 books to go. 

Julia

[Beatriz]

Awhile ago I came across this thread by jbcohen:

http://www.kindleboards.com/index.php/topic,93836.0.html

He encouraged us to read 100 books in 2012.  That caught my imagination....Despite loving my Kindle, I do not read nearly as much as I used to.  A lot of that is because I am too easily distracted by web browsing or playing games on my iPad.  Time that would've been spent reading goes for those things instead.  Those are both okay activities, but I'd like to read more.  To make a long story short, I decided 100 books is perhaps too ambitious, that is two books a week, and some of my reading is history books that are pretty substantial.  I originally thought in terms of 75 books (one and a half books a week), but am shooting for eighty.

Another bad habit I have is wanting something comfortable that will be a decent read, so grabbing an "old reliable" instead of trying something new.  So I'm going to set a rule that I will only read new books that I haven't read before next year.  I'm going to make a couple of exceptions to that....I've been wanting to reread some classics, especially Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn.  Plus, I've been wanting to re-read a bunch of stuff from a mystery writer I like named Max Allan Collins (a LOT of his stuff has been Kindleized lately and offered at low promotional prices).  For the Twain books, and many of the Collins books, I haven't read them in a long time (teenager for Twain, 1980s for Collins) so I don't feel too bad about that.  The one comfort read I'm gonna allow myself is Sherlock Holmes.  I'll undoubtedly have to get a Holmes fix during the year, and why should I fight that?

They say one of the ways to push yourself into sticking with a resolution is to make public declarations about it, so I'm making that declaration here.  I will list each book I read here, and hopefully put down some comments about it.  It should make an interesting read (for me anyway) at the end of 2012!  And y'all are free to post comments about what I say, boo and hiss when I don't add at least one new book each week, or do anything else remotely appropriate for the topic....

Right now I'm reading Boone, by Robert Morgan.  Grabbed it on a promotional $1.99 price yesterday, and started it last night.  I'm only about 20% of the way through it, so I'm going to count this as my first 2012 book.  I'm happy with the book so far, and recommend it for anyone who thinks they might like a biography of Daniel Boone.  It also has a lot of incidental detail about the times as they applied to Boone.  I'm currently reading about Boone's first expeditions into Kentucky.  The biggest surprise so far has been that Boone was a great woodsman and had many talents, but he was a terrible businessman and sloppy about paying his debts.  A lawyer called him the most-sued person in his home county!  Still only $1.79 for the Kindle version as I post this!



Stay tuned for more as I progress reading through the year....

I love biographies.  I'll get this on your recommendation.

[drenee]

I will definitely be a cheerleader.  I read/listened to 75 books this year. 
Like you I too spend a significant amount of time playing WwF and other time consumers. 
I'm not sure I can do 75 again this year as I would really like to focus on my cross stitching projects that have been accumulating dust. 
If I make it to 60 in 2012 and finish a couple of cross stitch projects I will be happy.
Happy reading in 2012.
deb

[The Hooded Claw]

I love biographies.  I'll get this on your recommendation.

I think you'll like it if the subject interests you.  The price is certainly right!

[The Hooded Claw]

I was a "bad citizen" and didn't do any reading yesterday, but I'm back to it this evening, and I am really enjoying Boone.  I have a special interest in this that I hadn't expected.  One of my distant ancestors named Attakullakulla (I'm not making that up, he was a Cherokee Indian leader and he's in Wikipedia under that name!) had a lot more to do with Boone than I'd expected.  Earlier in the book, it is mentioned that they may have been on opposite sides in some Indian raids, but it ends up that Boone played an important role at a meeting where several Cherokee leaders, including Attakullakulla, agreed to sell some land to an English (this is before the American Revolution was really under way) Judge.  Attakullakulla and Boone met privately for an extended period at least once during this.  The whole affair is humorous, because it was illegal on the English side (English were forbidden to buy land West of the Appalachians at the time), and the claim of the Cherokee for the land being "sold" was dubious.  And there is the usual suspicion that the understanding of what "sold" meant was different for the whites and for the Indians.  This is probably the end of the line for Attakullakulla in this book, as one account describes him as "about ninety years old" at the time (He was actually a little short of seventy, and I know he died about two years later though the exact date isn't known), but one of his sons (who is also an ancestor of mine) has been mentioned, was active in fighting the English (as opposed to his father who was an accomodationist) and I suspect the son will continue in the story.

It is very cool to read a history book that involves one of my ancestors, admittedly distant, so directly!  I had not known about this connection.  Attakullakulla is my grandfather nine generations back, if I remember right, so it's a pretty long thin line, but it is still awesome to read about!

[Lursa (aka 9MMare)]

I picked the Boone book up too. Unfortunately, it's quite a ways down the reading list..unless you tell us wonderful things!

[The Hooded Claw]

I am enjoying Boone, and recommend it for those interested in the subject, but I can't say it is wonderful! Keep it on your list, but you don't need to take vacation days to rush into reading it.

[telracs]

I can cheer AND jeer......

[Neekeebee]

Here to cheer!

N

[The Hooded Claw]

I can cheer AND jeer......

Psst....Everyone else is too embaraased to tell you, but it looks really silly when you do both of them at once like that.

[Ann in Arlington]

hooray!

Nyah nyah!

hooray!

nyah nyah!


You're right. . that looks really silly.

[telracs]

the deal is you cheer in half your posts and you jeer in the other half.

to quote Styx, "i'm schizophrenic and so am i"

[crebel]

"Toots" will cheer and Scarlet will jeer...

[telracs]

okay, my inner voices have taken a caucus

Toots: go claw, read some more, you're the best reader, you can hit one hundred!

scarlet: yeah, no way you're breaking 40, let alone 80

[BTackitt]

I set my goal at 250. I'm not gonna count school textbooks (even though 2 are again on Kindle)
I am only counting previously unread books. I figure that once school starts up in 2 weeks, I may only read a book every 2 or 3 days, instead of the rate I am reading now, but hey, I read 2 yesterday, so that helps. My poor K2 has 1500+ unread books on it, I need to read them.

[The Hooded Claw]

I set my goal at 250. I'm not gonna count school textbooks (even though 2 are again on Kindle)
I am only counting previously unread books. I figure that once school starts up in 2 weeks, I may only read a book every 2 or 3 days, instead of the rate I am reading now, but hey, I read 2 yesterday, so that helps. My poor K2 has 1500+ unread books on it, I need to read them.

Good Lord, 250 books is a lot of books in one year!  Enjoy, and do take time to savor the books and let 'em sink in!

[The Hooded Claw]

My book count for the year is now one book!  Boone is complete.  I thoroughly enjoyed the book, and recommend it to those who are intrigued at the idea of reading about him.

Contrary to my hopes, my ancestor Attakullakulla was mentioned in passing a time or two after the big meeting I posted on earlier, but his son (also my ancestor) named Dragging Canoe was only mentioned off-stage a time or two, and never actually encountered Boone.  There are some interesting connections between Boone and others, believe it or not there is a (slender, I admit) connection between Daniel Boone and Frankenstein!  In 1785, Boone acted rather naively, and was swindled out of ten thousand acres of land by a man named Gilbert Imlay.  Imlay was apparently a very smooth and sophisticated con man who had made a lot of enemies, so he took his swindled wealth and fled to England.  Imlay became close to Mary Wollstonecraft, mother of Mary Shelley, Imlay fathered a child by Mary, but abandoned both his daughter and Mary Shelley a few years later when Mary Wollstonecroft died.  I consider Frankenstein as a good candidate for the first science fiction novel; who'd have thought there would be a connection between Daniel Boone and the birth of science fiction!

The Boone book is filled with all sorts of adventures that would make great fodder for movies, some of them are well-documented and at least mostly true, the book does recount some events that are clearly myth, or where there's evidence that a story is invented.  These are clearly identified as such, and less time is spent on myths than on documented or at least likely events.  I was surprised how much tragedy there was in Boone's life.  Two of his sons were killed horribly by Indians, one literally before his eyes, and Boone was always a failure at anything related to business, including dying not owning any land at all.  I was surprised to find that Boone spent his last years in Missouri, and was still active in exploring the West into his 70s, including making a trip to the Yellowstone region at that age.  I picked up an interesting "new" word from the book (and learned the definition from my Kindle!).  "Flagitious" means criminal or villainous.  The word was used in a speech by an unpleasant man named Simon Girty, and I'd assumed it was an invented word, but it is real.  I'm amused to find that Boone liked the word "flustrated", and used it several times in writing that survives to this day.  Boone's spelling in general was atrocious.  Of course, he learned his spelling before Noah Webster came along to systematize things for us.

Again, I highly recommend the book if the subject interests you.

Now, I just have to decide what to read next.  I'm leaning towards another Charlie Chan mystery!

[telracs]

Toots:  congrats claw, 79 to go...

scarlet: only one done?  you'll never make it.

and both my personalities say go for the charlie chan.

[The Hooded Claw]

Well, I have started the Charlie Chan book.  Title is The Black Camel.  I knew Charlie Chan only through watching the old movies on The Late Show as a teenager until I started reading these recently.  I associate Charlie Chan with Honolulu, and assumed most of the books would be set there.  But the second book was in the Southern California desert, and the third in San Francisco.  From the title, it would be easy to assume The Black Camel would be set in the Middle East, but in fact it has Inspector (recently promoted from Sergeant) Chan back his home of Honolulu as in the first book.  The book is off to a good start and I am enjoying it, but I already think I know who the murderer was.  We shall see.  But now, I am going to wind down and go to bed.

[The Hooded Claw]

Well, my book count is up to two.  I enjoyed the Charlie Chan book, The Black Camel is worth reading if you like that sort of mystery (essentially a "cozy" mystery, there's little violence or grit here).  Charlie has an adversary who is quite clever.  And I was wrong in my guess of the murderer, though it looked like I had him dead to rights, and even Charlie suspected him for a long time!  Charlie does use quaint sayings or proverbs in the books, just like the movies.  Here are a few:

"The man who sits in a well, sees little of the sky."

"Can a man think beneath a tree filled with mynah birds?"  (to quiet his eleven loud children!)

"If no one had praised the donkey's song, he would not still be singing."

"The wise man, knowing he is under suspicion, does not stoop to tie his shoe in a melon patch."

"When there is no oil in the lamp, the wick is wasted."

"Can you study swimming on a carpet?  No, you must go where waters are deep."

"A gem is not polished without rubbing, nor a man perfected without trials."

[The Hooded Claw]

A Walk Around the Pond:  Insects in and Over the Water, by Gilbert Waldbauer

This will be my next book.  I'm quite interested in insects and "bugs", they are a favorite photographic subject for me.  I've downloaded the books from the archives onto Wiggins, and I'm already annoyed, as the page the book opens up on has a blank spot and the message "To view this image, refer to the print version of this title".  The Kindle is not great at rendering pictures, but I resent not having them available at all!  I've got the book ready for reading, but now I'm off to bed and the book can wait for tomorrow!

[Ann in Arlington]

Hmm.  So.  6 days, 2 books.  That's one book every 3 days.  366 days divide by 3 days per book means you should be able to read 122 books. . . . Since your goal is 80 that gives you a good cushion for 'unexpected events'.

[The Hooded Claw]

Hmm.  So.  6 days, 2 books.  That's one book every 3 days.  366 days divide by 3 days per book means you should be able to read 122 books. . . . Since your goal is 80 that gives you a good cushion for 'unexpected events'.

When I travel, or when life becomes a little too exciting, I'm sure I will need that cushion!

[The Hooded Claw]

I am now 22% through "A Walk Around the Pond" and will probably read some more tonight before bed.  I'm happy with the book, I've read others by the same author and this is similar--It is just chapters on a topic with discussions of features of aquatic insects that are relevant to the chapter topic--Different ways various insects breath (or at least keep supplied with air) underwater, for instance.  Lots of accounts of interesting lifestyles mentioned, such as a species of fly that is apparently unique, as it prefers to live in pools of crude oil!  This apparently evolved naturally, living in areas of the world where oil bubbled up to the surface occasionally, but it was happy to move into spillage from man-made crude oil production once that came along.  It is the larvae that live in the oil, where they feed on dead insects of other species that were unfortunate enough to land on the oil and be trapped there.  The adults are fairly typical flies, though they have gooey stuff on the tips of their legs that lets them walk on puddles of crude oil, an important skill when they lay their eggs there.