An old friend and former college roommate posted something on Facebook recently. Based on a couple of comments he had heard a few years back, one that George Vanderbilt had averaged reading two books a week for his entire lifetime, the other that leaders tend to be readers and readers tend to be leaders, he decided to challenge himself to read four books a month over a calender year. It's been three years, but he hasn't yet hit his goal, so this year he asked anyone who wished to join him. Being a huge fan of such challenges, especially when it comes to things I love to do, I jumped at that chance and will try to document my attempts on this blog.
My friend created a template that allows you to enter the books you will read, the amount of pages in the book and the amount of pages you have read, so you can keep track of your goal and what you may or may not need to accomplish to achieve the goal. So, I have pretty much planned out my reading for the year. I tried to keep to a formula for each month's choices in an attempt to keep my reading diverse and in line with my reading habits. I tried to keep to one paperback book, a book that I carry around with me for reading during work breaks or down time at school, one fiction book, most likely a recent novel I'm interested in reading, one non-fiction book, anything from history to biography to sports stuff, and one wild card.
In all honesty, I doubt I will accomplish the goal this year. I read 35 books last year and 13 more books in a year is a pretty good jump. Also, one of the books, my wild card in January, is "Infinite Jest" by David Foster Wallace. I've had this book on my Goodreads "reading shelf" for three years. I keep picking it up and putting it down and getting very little accomplished as far as finishing it. As much as I would love to read 48 books in 2012, I think my true accomplishment will be putting this long, dense, far from intriguing book to rest. I put it right up front figuring if it carries over to month two or even month three, I still have most of the year to make up two books.
But enough about what I want to do, or may do, or any other future tense helping verb you can put in front of do, and on to what I have done...
The first book I finished in 2012 was "The Innocent Man" by John Grisham. I take a lot of shots at John Grisham in my writing. I just don't find his prose well written. It's choppy and filled with cliches and nothing about his dialogue feels real or believable. His stories although at times entertaining, also tend to more then push the limit of believability. So, why do I read so much of his stuff? It's a long story, but basically I got the books for free and his stuff is easy to read and fills time and occasionally entertains me.
"Innocent Man" is a huge departure for Grisham. None of my typical criticism is valid because none of "Innocent Man" is a product of Grisham's imagination. "Innocent Man" is a true crime story about a botched small town murder case in Oklahoma that almost led to an innocent man being given the death penalty. Grisham lays out a crazy tale of small town politics, bad lawyering, suspect judging, and a man's spiral into mental deterioration. Unlike in his fiction, Grisham's prose pops off the page as he beautifully describes small town Oklahoma, a troubled investigation and trial, death row and other circumstances. Although at times the narrative seems to jump around, the story keeps moving at a torrid pace, never losing it's suspense. Grisham should really think about cutting down on his fiction and move into the world of true crime. His talents seem to be better served there.
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