Kindly readers of this blog will know that I’ve been tracking my books in a database provided by my lovely (and talented!) wife many years ago. And that I’ve been numbering the books read in that same software. And, additionally, that I have some strange scruple by which I don’t count comic books (and graphic novels) against the total number of books read. And that I recently gave you all the deets on the last tranche of a hundred books read, viz., those up to Book #1300.
As I intimated in that last report, I finished my 1400th book read in my silly book tracking project just shortly after giving you that full listing of the hundred books read previously (#s 1201-1300). Indeed, a mere three days after I’d published the “Book List: 1300 Books” listing detailing my poor reading habits for the previous century (of books), I hit Book #1400 in the aforementioned silly database project. The wonderful tome which saw me pass another fictional finish line? The supposed first entry in the Hank Janson series, Kill Her With Passion, supposedly written by Hank Janson. I advisedly say ‘supposed’ and ‘supposedly’ here because I find from the Interwebs that this Gold Star Book from 1963 is really only one of hundreds written under the ‘Hank Janson’ imprimatur, and is by no means the first. (In fact, it appears that this title is somewhere around #150 in the ‘series’.) I say ‘series’ in that last parenthesis because the Hank Janson character originally was penned by one Stephen D. Frances starting in 1946, and supposedly those earlier books by his hand were much better than the later ones written by house authors for quick cash. I can believe it. Kill Her With Passion is a very silly, throwaway little book, though it was quite fun. It is a terrible mishmash of hipness and sex, where beat clubs dig old school jazz in the heart of not-yet-swinging London, and a brash American brashes his way through a stupid set of murders committed by the stupidest smart guy in the business. A dumb enjoyable quick read.
And I’ve been doing a lot of quick reading lately, blowing through lots of short and easy prose just to get my ‘books read’ count up. Why? I confess. I bought a bunch of books lately, and am trying to offset the new purchases of which there are too many by reading as quickly as I can some others I already have. My goal is to be carbon-neutral, I mean, my goal is to have my books acquired equal to or less than my books read. So that’s why the numbers have gotten all weird lately, and that’s also why you’ll note in the full Book List which I swear I’ll get to you posthaste that I’ve been reading lots of comics. (Though I don’t count those towards the ‘Books Read’ total, they are included in my total number of volumes, so I’m reading those to help balance my (once more, need I remind you, fictional) accounts.
The first book of this past century was another entry in the fantastic Dray Prescot series, Delia Of Vallia. Alan Burt Akers (pen name for this series of Kenneth Bulmer) has created an amazing world in this series, and this book is no exception to the high quality I’ve become used to, though it is a bit of an outlier. For the first time, the tale of the wonders of the far-off planet of Kregen under the suns of Antares is told from the perspective of someone other than Dray Prescot himself, that doughty fighter thrown from Earth onto the strangest of planets were a man’s brawn and brain must constantly struggle to survive the dangers of bizarre races and deadly beasts that populate that fascinating planet under the double suns. The eponymous Delia of Vallia is Prescot’s beloved, and this story from her perspective is fun, with Akers (Bulmer) going up to the line in this anti-slavery tale. The frame story is shaken a little, but the result is a good one.
Mysteries were overwhelmingly the most-read genre in this last set of 100 books, with 44 read (45 if we include my re-reading of Hickory Dickory Death, which I originally read back in 2018, but we won’t, so there). The next most read genre is Science Fiction & Fantasy, at 16 books. (I’m including Stephen King’s Cell in this category, because though it’s gory enough for Horror (and boy-oh-boy, is it gory, I mean, really gory, gory with a bite, dang does it have gore), it has its SF elements as well.) There are 8 Fiction books read, and then little dribs and drabs of that and the other thing, such as 4 each of Religion, History, and Poetry books … though 2 of those Poetry genre books I’m including in Comics, because, well … they’re comic books. Speaking of Comics, I read 17 of those in this last set.
The pace was a blistering 142 days to read these 100 books, though this is in fact 23% slower than the pace set in the last century of books. If we include the comics and the re-read Agatha Christie, the pace was just north of 1.2 days per book read. Of course we don’t, so … moving on. The absolute pace of reading was also lower than in the previous century of books, at 186.6 pages read per day; or, if we include the return to a rather mediocre Poirot and the comics, 193 pages per day. (Compare with 230 pages/day and 245 pages/day, respectively.)
1 Book per 1.42 Days
I shall endeavor to provide you with the entire list of books soon, as I’m already up to Book #1440 in the newest set of 100.
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