October 2016 – Lost In A Million Pages

Another year under my belt and I feel content (yes, just content) with the outcome. So here is a quick recap of how (Y-8) finished.

In the book front I read 43 of the 52 books in the list. That’s a book every 8.5 days, not that bad.

In the page front I read 16,509 pages of the 20,730 in the goal. That’s a 79.5%, again not that bad.

The longest book was 1Q84 (Book 1 and Book 2) by Haruki Murakami with 936 pages.

The shortest book was El extraño caseron en la niebla by H.P. Lovecraft with 91 pages.

The books that I couldn’t read this past year will be added to the list of (Y-9) and are the following:

The Vampire Lestat by Anne Rice (currently reading)
El Evangelio según Jesucristo by José Saramago (currently reading)
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J.K. Rowling
The Amber Spyglass by Philip Pullman
Memorial del Convento by José Saramago
El Naranjo by Carlos Fuentes
The Anubis Gates by Tim Powers
J.R.R. Tolkien: Architect of Middle-Earth by Daniel Grota
Pyramids by Terry Pratchett

Now moving to (Y-9), in previous posts I made a promise (to myself mostly) that in this 3 years leading up to the tenth anniversary of this crazy project, that I will read a total of 130,500 pages. With the total of (Y-8) that leaves 113,991 pages to read in two years. In average I’ll have to read a total 56,996 pages each year. The good news is that I’m back to reading graphic novels and comic-books so the page count with increase considerably.

So the path is lay-down in front of me, time to put the pedal to the metal.

Some side things I’ll do different for this year is what a call a “caffeine pilgrimage” , which consist basically in keeping track of my daily coffee intake (this is inspired in a comment of somebody that told me I drink way to much coffee) and also I plan to visit the various coffee houses that have pop-up recently all around town. The other I plan to read some of the works of recent Nobel in Literature Laureates that I haven’t read.

The preliminary list goes as thus:

Tarantula by Bob Dylan (Nobel 2016)
Voice from Chernobyl: The Oral History of a Nuclear Disaster by Svetlana Alexievich (Nobel 2015)
Young Once by Patrick Modiano (Nobel 2014)
La vida de las mujeres by Alice Munro (Nobel 2013)
Sorgo Rojo by Mo Yan (Nobel 2012)
The Hunger Angel by Herta Müller (Nobel 2009)
Mondo and Other Stories by J.M.G. Le Clezio (Nobel 2008)
My Name is Red by Orhan Pamuk (Nobel 2006)
El Tambor de Hojalata by Günther Grass (Nobel 1999)

And finally, last week I went to the local Book Fair, it’s mainly organized by the local college UACJ (my alma mater) and it features national publishing houses ranging from literature to architectural books.

I found some real treats