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52 books, 52 weeks

Reading Time: 2 minutes

Three weeks ago, I counted my book list to see how many books I had read up to that point. I was at 47 and in the midst of reading David Copperfield. I thought it would be a nice goal to reach 52 books for the year.

52 books, for 52 weeks.

However, I was progressing through David Copperfield at only a chapter or two a day and, according to my kindle, I still had about nine hours left to read. Charles Dickens writing does not make for an easy read. A chapter drains you and makes you feel as if you’ve just read a novel.

I thought that if I could finish David Copperfield on the train (10 hours) on the 17th, then I’d have from the 18th to the 31st with not much to do other than to read. The weekend before the 17th, I took a break from David Copperfield and read Dune Messiah. It was only 256 pages. I didn’t end up finishing David Copperfield on the train. I couldn’t, but I finished it a few days later.

Before Christmas, I also read Children of Men and Looking For a City in America: Down These Mean Streets a Man Must Go…, which is really an essay that’s 20+ pages long, but, since the majority of the books I read are over 600 pages, with some being in the 1000s, I figured I could count it. If my mom can read 52 books that are around 300 pages, then I don’t think it’s wrong for me to count an essay. I also read a short story called The Lottery, which I’m not counting.

After Christmas, I finished my 52nd book on the 29th. It was Children of Dune. These are the books I read:

1)The War on Normal People

2)Outlander 

3)The River of Doubt: Theodore Roosevelt’s Darkest Journey

4)Thai Stick: Surfers, Scammers and the Untold Story of the Marijuana Trade

5)Alive: The Story of the Andes Survivors 

6)Replay 

7)The Language of Architecture: 26 Principles Every Architect Should Know

8)No Friend But the Mountains 

9)Shōgun

10)Rocket Boys 

11)The Way of the Kings (Stormlight Archive book 1)

12)Words of Radiance (Stormlight Archive book 2) 

13)Edgedancer 

14)Oath Bringer (Stormlight Archive book 3) 

15)Dawnshard 

16)Rhythm of War (Stormlight Archive book 4) 

17)Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis  

18)Gardens of the Moon (Malazan book 1)

19)Sleep Donation 

20)Brave New Homes 

21)The Poison Squad: One Chemist’s Single-Minded Crusade for Food Safety at the Turn of the Twentieth Century

22)Great Expectations  

23)Artemis 

24)Generation Kill

25)Tip of the Iceberg 

26)101 Things I Learned at Architecture School

27)Experiencing Architecture 

28)The Remains of the Day 

29)Animal Farm 

30)Neverwhere 

31)A Rumor of War 

32)The Thousand Names (Shadow Campaign 1)

33)Perspective Made Easy 

34)The Sorrow of War 

35)Fatherland 

36)The Shadow Throne (Shadow Campaign 2)

37)Class Action Park: Fast Times, Wild Rides, and the Untold Story of America’s Most Dangerous Amusement Park 

38)Towards a New Architecture 

39)Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture

40)In Praise of Shadows 

41)Tales of the Alhambra 

42)Form and Function 

43)The International Style 

44)From Bauhaus to Our House 

45)PREFAB

46)Thinking With Type 

47)Ulm Design: The Morality of Objects 

48)Dune Messiah 

49)Looking for a City in America: Down these mean streets a man must go 

50)David Copperfield 

51)The Children of Men 

52)Children of Dune 

53*)The Lottery (Short story)

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