Today’s Post by Joe Farace
51.57 percent of Americans won’t finish even one book this year…if you’ve read one book then you’re already above average—readwith.jules
In a recent book club post, I mentioned that I’d read 71 books during 2023, Some of you asked if I set a goal for the number of books to read in the new year but I don’t and I didn’t. The whole book counting thing started a few years ago with a social media challenge to read 50 books during the year. But even then I never set a specific goal; I just started writing down in my journal(s) the titles of the books I read. That first year I read a few more than 50, so I was pleased. Some recent emails seemed to have been spurred by a video created by a popular Tik Toker who set a goal to read 100 books last year and the process made her miserable. I can understand why. She turned the joy of reading into a job; it became work, not fun. I have no goals in mind for 2024 and if anything I seem to have gotten off to a slower than normal start and at the end of the year I won’t care how many books I read, just that I enjoyed the ones I did read.
How Many Books Are in the Average Home?
Based on some Internet research, counting the 9% who say they own no physical books, at least 69% of Americans own no more than 100 books. (6% are unsure how many they own.) Another 25% own at least 100 books, including the 4% who own between 500 and 1,000 books, and the 3% who own more than 1,000 volumes. Not surprisingly I’m in that 3% group although I have never actually counted them. The number of books I think I own is based on what the movers guessed after carrying in many book boxes when we moved to Daisy Hill almost 13 years ago. Since that time, I’ve given away and donated some books but have also probably acquired more than I have lost. The photo at right shows the dining room of my former home. These bookshelves are currently located in my Daisy Hill dining room and there are more books jammed on these shelves than in this photograph. These are not the only book shelves in the house. There are three more in my office and two in the basement near the TV that have books about the movies and there’s a small book case in the living room with some books about cars.
Growing up as a kid in Baltimore, my family could not afford to own many books and, to the best of my knowledge, we only owned, two: A Bible and Two Years before the Mast by Richard Henry Dana. I tried reading the Dana book at the time but it was too difficult for my kid-sized brain to comprehend. Although I was able to read before entering first grade at St Catherine of Sienna school, I didn’t really get into reading books until my second grade teacher took our class to the Clifton Park branch of Baltimore’s Enoch Pratt Fee Library. You can read about that experience here in the first chapter of Joe’s Book Club and it’s where I discovered The Story of Babar. There are 47 books in series and I didn’t read all of them, I’m sure that I read all that were on the library’s shelves. That may have inspired my current habit of latching onto of an author’s work and devouring every book in a series, plus my life long affection for elephants. And libraries too, for that matter.
Mary’s Book Picks
My latest book is Where the Dead Sleep by that was a gift from my wife who worries about me when I don’t have something new to read and appears to be the second of three or four monthly books she’s odered for me in 2024. This is number two in my “Books Read in 2024” list.
This book features deputy sheriff Ben Packard and right away some comparisons come to mind with Gay cops are nothing new to mystery fiction with the most notable being Jonathan Kellerman’s Milo Sturgis and Lee Farrell in Robert B. Parker’s Spenser novels.
The novel concerns the murder of a less than savory character who was married to the sister of a women he was married to previously. Complicated? You bet and it’s this dysfunctional family that provides the inner structure of the novel that gradually unwinds to a conclusion that, while maybe not surprising, feels realistic. This is ‘s second novel; I’ve ordered his first, This is the best book I’ve read in 2024, which isn’t saying much since it’s only number two but I enjoyed the heck out of the book.
Oh, and the books title? What does it mean? As far as I can tell nothing, but I think it’s a portent of what’s coming in the next book in the series. Is it a trilogy? Because the author cleverly sets up a sequel at the end of the book. I can’t wait to read it. Meanwhile I’m looking forward to