The Bell Jar/Things Fall Apart/The Pleasure of my Company

First off, I did these out of order. Second, I am really cutting back on the reading. When I made the list I wasn't planning on doing any writing this summer. Then a few days ago I got an idea in my head that I just had to go with. And the reason for the out of orderedness is I made a trip up to Santa Fe, and I figured since I wasn't reading I could use the whole time in the car to listen to some of these books on tape. Cheating? I don't know. Really doesn't seem to be in the spirit of 10,000 Pages of Summer, but who cares.

The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath; 244


Wow, this one took a depressing turn! Started out all normal, and I was really wondering if there was a point or plot at all, and then WOW. I did feel the ending was too abrupt, and my worse fear was realized when the name was not referring to a jar full of bells, but the scientific apparatus, and metaphorically at that!


Things Fall Apart - Chinua Achebe; 209

I have never seen a humorist more committed to a joke in my like that Achebe in Things Fall Apart. So, he started with the whole "I'm writing a serious novel that focuses on life in Nigeria in the late 19th Century, and it's going to describe the hardships in life and the effect on Christian missionaries coming in..." And let me tell you, this setup took a long time. A REALLY long time. He was committed, and then, almost at the end, he gave us the punchline. A guy who instead of saying "myself" or "yourself" he said "my buttocks" and "your buttocks." I tell ya, when he said "Your buttocks said he had a son," I lost it. Long setup, but awesome delivery.

The Pleasure of my Company - Steve Martin; 163


Loved it. For some reason, neurotics whose obsessions are so prominent that they can't carry out their normal lives are my favorite characters. And I realize that sounds sarcastic, but I really am being serious. It was short, quirky, funny, (not "Your buttocks said he had a son" funny, but still pretty funny.  I think it would translate very well into a movie, and I am very disappointed it is not one.

3,928 pages in 37 days (because I finished them yesterday) for an average of 106.16.


1. Swine Not? - Jimmy Buffett; 256 
2. Moby Dick; or The Whale - Herman Melville; 870
3. The Stranger Beside Me - Ann Rule; 1,542 
4. Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said - Philip K. Dick; 1,773
5. Duma Key - Stephen King; 2,384
6. Things I Overheard While Talking to Myself - Alan Alda; 2,608 
7. Greenwich Killing Time - Kinky Friedman; 2,774
8. Murder in the White House - Margaret Truman; 3,009
9. Dexter in the Dark - Jeff Lindsay; 3,312
10. The Idiot - Fyodor Dostoyevsky; 4,080 
11. The Taking - Dean Koontz; 4,544
12. Things Fall Apart - Chinua Achebe; 4,753
13. Me Talk Pretty One Day - David Sedaris; 5,025 
14. Middlemarch - George Eliot; 5,761
15. Beloved - Toni Morrison;6,036
16. The Scarlet Letter - Nathaniel Hawthorne; 6,228
17. The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood - Howard Pyle; 6,368
18. The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath; 6,612
19. Gadsby - Ernest Vincent Wright; 6,768
20. Pulp Fiction Selections - L. Ron Hubbard; 7,456
21. The Final Testament of the Holy Bible - James Frey; 7,856
22. Chili Dawgs Always Bark At Night -Lewis Grizzard; 8,125
23. The Greek - Pierre Rey; 8,573
24. The Pleasure of my Company - Steve Martin; 8,736
25. Fierce Invalids Home from Hot Climates - Tom Robbins; 9,200 
26. Possible Side Effects - Augusten Burroughs; 9,504
27. In Cold Blood - Truman Capote; 9,847
28. The Daybreakers - Louis L'Amour; 10,000

Dexter in the Dark

Dexter in the Dark - Jeff Lindsay; 303


Next time I make the list, I need to shuffle it up before finalizing. Three murder mysteries in a row is kind of much, especially coming this soon after the Ted Bundy book.


This one wasn't bad however. It really felt like the Showtime series. At least the characters of Deborah, Dexter and Rita did. The relationship Dexter had with Rita's kids was definitely different, and kind of his relationship with Deborah was too, because it seemed she new more of his true nature than she does on TV. It probably means that I need to read the first two books in the series to see how this developed. But not this summer. After reading the book I pulled up a couple of plot summaries to make sure I didn't miss anything major, and I saw where it said this was the first Dexter book not entirely in first person Dexter point of view, as it also included sections from the point of view of The Watcher and IT. To tell you the truth, those were the sections I could have done without. And also this book was too much in Dexter's head for my tastes. I would rather the characters be doing things than one character thinking about things and me having to read his thoughts. Even though this one had a better story and better characters, I still tend more to liking Kinky's writing style more because it was straight forward plot driven, and no internal monologs.


3,312 pages in 29 days for an average of 114.20. 


1. Swine Not? - Jimmy Buffett; 256 
2. Moby Dick; or The Whale - Herman Melville; 870
3. The Stranger Beside Me - Ann Rule; 1,542 
4. Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said - Philip K. Dick; 1,773
5. Duma Key - Stephen King; 2,384
6. Things I Overheard While Talking to Myself - Alan Alda; 2,608 
7. Greenwich Killing Time - Kinky Friedman; 2,774
8. Murder in the White House - Margaret Truman; 3,009
9. Dexter in the Dark - Jeff Lindsay; 3,312
10. The Idiot - Fyodor Dostoyevsky; 4,080 
11. The Taking - Dean Koontz; 4,544
12. Things Fall Apart - Chinua Achebe; 4,753
13. Me Talk Pretty One Day - David Sedaris; 5,025 
14. Middlemarch - George Eliot; 5,761
15. Beloved - Toni Morrison;6,036
16. The Scarlet Letter - Nathaniel Hawthorne; 6,228
17. The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood - Howard Pyle; 6,368
18. The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath; 6,612
19. Gadsby - Ernest Vincent Wright; 6,768
20. Pulp Fiction Selections - L. Ron Hubbard; 7,456
21. The Final Testament of the Holy Bible - James Frey; 7,856
22. Chili Dawgs Always Bark At Night -Lewis Grizzard; 8,125
23. The Greek - Pierre Rey; 8,573
24. The Pleasure of my Company - Steve Martin; 8,736
25. Fierce Invalids Home from Hot Climates - Tom Robbins; 9,200 
26. Possible Side Effects - Augusten Burroughs; 9,504
27. In Cold Blood - Truman Capote; 9,847
28. The Daybreakers - Louis L'Amour; 10,000

Murder in the White House

Murder in the White House - Margaret Truman; 235
After the first couple of pages I was coming up with one line reviews to cover this whole book;
"You know those conversations you hear old people having and can't believe anyone in the world would find them interesting, this book was just a boring old person conversation." and "This book would have never been published if she were not a president's daughter." &t.
But, it got better. The dialog was really good and kept the story going. The details and plot action, eh, not so much, but it was a good quick read. I really have no complaints. Well, except for the first two or three pages. Those were pretty awful. And the fact that the chapters were so long. Two were over 40 pages, and one was over 60. Ok, so I have two complaints. Three if you count how boring the stuff that wasn't dialog was. 


3,009 pages in 26 days for an average of 115.73. 


1. Swine Not? - Jimmy Buffett; 256 
2. Moby Dick; or The Whale - Herman Melville; 870
3. The Stranger Beside Me - Ann Rule; 1,542 
4. Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said - Philip K. Dick; 1,773
5. Duma Key - Stephen King; 2,384
6. Things I Overheard While Talking to Myself - Alan Alda; 2,608 
7. Greenwich Killing Time - Kinky Friedman; 2,774
8. Murder in the White House - Margaret Truman; 3,009
9. Dexter in the Dark - Jeff Lindsay; 3,312
10. The Idiot - Fyodor Dostoyevsky; 4,080 
11. The Taking - Dean Koontz; 4,544
12. Things Fall Apart - Chinua Achebe; 4,753
13. Me Talk Pretty One Day - David Sedaris; 5,025 
14. Middlemarch - George Eliot; 5,761
15. Beloved - Toni Morrison;6,036
16. The Scarlet Letter - Nathaniel Hawthorne; 6,228
17. The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood - Howard Pyle; 6,368
18. The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath; 6,612
19. Gadsby - Ernest Vincent Wright; 6,768
20. Pulp Fiction Selections - L. Ron Hubbard; 7,456
21. The Final Testament of the Holy Bible - James Frey; 7,856
22. Chili Dawgs Always Bark At Night -Lewis Grizzard; 8,125
23. The Greek - Pierre Rey; 8,573
24. The Pleasure of my Company - Steve Martin; 8,736
25. Fierce Invalids Home from Hot Climates - Tom Robbins; 9,200 
26. Possible Side Effects - Augusten Burroughs; 9,504
27. In Cold Blood - Truman Capote; 9,847
28. The Daybreakers - Louis L'Amour; 10,000

Greenwich Killing Time

Greenwich Killing Time - Kinky Friedman; 166


I liked this book a lot. Kinky does something in his books that I find really awesome. He takes himself, and then makes himself the main character of a the novel, but completely fictionalized. Which honestly I think is what most people do, they just change the character's name, which takes away the awesomeness. Instead of saying "I like detectives I will right a story about one name 'blah, blah, blah," it is like he said,"I would make an awesome detective, and this is what I'd do." The only other book I have read by him is Meanwhile, Back at the Ranch, and that one involved three plots with Kinky trying to solve them all, whereas this one only had one plot. Now, I am trying to figure out what that means. Normally, I would guess it is assumed as someone becomes a better writer, they can integrate more plots and twist into the story and give it more depth, but I think at least with this style, that writing a full length novel around one story line is going to take more work and creativity. I don't know. If I ever see Kinky again I may just ask him. (That last part was intended as a joke, but thinking about it, I guess it isn't out of the question that I will see him again. I mean, just hanging out at the right cigar stores in Texas should really boost my chances.) Meanwhile, Back at the Ranch, had a little bit more crassness in it, and a little bit more of Kinky's personal life in it, which I think comes with him just being more comfortable putting himself into the novel, but I give this one an A+, and I decided while reading it, there really is no way that I can say what my favorite book of the summer is at the end, because every time I have been reading a book (except for Alda's) I have been thinking "This is the best book yet!" so me judging wouldn't really work. I can say that I liked it more than Duma Key, which is currently in 3rd with Flow My Tears and this one tied for first.


And here I am with Kinky a couple of years ago.

2,774 pages in 26 days for an average of 106.69. (About 1 page per day behind schedule.)


1. Swine Not? - Jimmy Buffett; 256 
2. Moby Dick; or The Whale - Herman Melville; 870
3. The Stranger Beside Me - Ann Rule; 1,542 
4. Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said - Philip K. Dick; 1,773
5. Duma Key - Stephen King; 2,384
6. Things I Overheard While Talking to Myself - Alan Alda; 2,608 
7. Greenwich Killing Time - Kinky Friedman; 2,774
8. Murder in the White House - Margaret Truman; 3,009
9. Dexter in the Dark - Jeff Lindsay; 3,312
10. The Idiot - Fyodor Dostoyevsky; 4,080 
11. The Taking - Dean Koontz; 4,544
12. Things Fall Apart - Chinua Achebe; 4,753
13. Me Talk Pretty One Day - David Sedaris; 5,025 
14. Middlemarch - George Eliot; 5,761
15. Beloved - Toni Morrison;6,036
16. The Scarlet Letter - Nathaniel Hawthorne; 6,228
17. The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood - Howard Pyle; 6,368
18. The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath; 6,612
19. Gadsby - Ernest Vincent Wright; 6,768
20. Pulp Fiction Selections - L. Ron Hubbard; 7,456
21. The Final Testament of the Holy Bible - James Frey; 7,856
22. Chili Dawgs Always Bark At Night -Lewis Grizzard; 8,125
23. The Greek - Pierre Rey; 8,573
24. The Pleasure of my Company - Steve Martin; 8,736
25. Fierce Invalids Home from Hot Climates - Tom Robbins; 9,200 
26. Possible Side Effects - Augusten Burroughs; 9,504
27. In Cold Blood - Truman Capote; 9,847
28. The Daybreakers - Louis L'Amour; 10,000

Things I Overheard While Talking to Myself

Things I Overheard While Talking to Myself - Alan Alda; 611 pages


I did not like this book. At all. It wasn't all commencement speeches, but there sure were a lot of them. It has been over 5 years since I read Alda's other memoir, Never Have Your Dog Stuffed, but I do remember really liking that book. This one just seems like the leftover. The stories that weren't good enough to get into the last book, speeches to make the book longer, and anecdotes to make the speeches seem to fit into the story.



2,608 pages in 21 days for an average of 124.19.


1. Swine Not? - Jimmy Buffett; 256 
2. Moby Dick; or The Whale - Herman Melville; 870
3. The Stranger Beside Me - Ann Rule; 1,542 
4. Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said - Philip K. Dick; 1,773
5. Duma Key - Stephen King; 2,384
6. Things I Overheard While Talking to Myself - Alan Alda; 2,608 
7. Greenwich Killing Time - Kinky Friedman; 2,774
8. Murder in the White House - Margaret Truman; 3,009
9. Dexter in the Dark - Jeff Lindsay; 3,312
10. The Idiot - Fyodor Dostoyevsky; 4,080 
11. The Taking - Dean Koontz; 4,544
12. Things Fall Apart - Chinua Achebe; 4,753
13. Me Talk Pretty One Day - David Sedaris; 5,025 
14. Middlemarch - George Eliot; 5,761
15. Beloved - Toni Morrison;6,036
16. The Scarlet Letter - Nathaniel Hawthorne; 6,228
17. The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood - Howard Pyle; 6,368
18. The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath; 6,612
19. Gadsby - Ernest Vincent Wright; 6,768
20. Pulp Fiction Selections - L. Ron Hubbard; 7,456
21. The Final Testament of the Holy Bible - James Frey; 7,856
22. Chili Dawgs Always Bark At Night -Lewis Grizzard; 8,125
23. The Greek - Pierre Rey; 8,573
24. The Pleasure of my Company - Steve Martin; 8,736
25. Fierce Invalids Home from Hot Climates - Tom Robbins; 9,200 
26. Possible Side Effects - Augusten Burroughs; 9,504
27. In Cold Blood - Truman Capote; 9,847
28. The Daybreakers - Louis L'Amour; 10,000

Duma Key

Duma Key - Stephen King; 611 pages

First off, it took me more days to read this book than I expected it to take me to read any of the books. I was on pace to finish it on Saturday, but I had a conference to go to in Louisiana Sunday, and that mucked up Saturday. Then, you know what, the time spent in Louisiana was better spent not reading. However, I did get a couple hours reading time on the airplane, and now that I am back, I finished this book up.

I have to say the first 400 pages or so, I was enjoying the heck out of it. But as it drug along, I was really just wanting it to be over. Really, it reminded me of a Goosebumps book for adults, and that aspect isn't really a criticism; I enjoyed it. But after the first 400 pages, I was really ready for the action, and though the last 200 pages were action packed, I didn't enjoy it nearly as much as I enjoyed the set up. Up until the end, I was thinking this might beat out Flow My Tears as the new lead in best book of the summer, but Flow My Tears still stands in a steady, uncontested first place.

2,384 pages in 20 days for an average of 119.2.


1. Swine Not? - Jimmy Buffett; 256 
2. Moby Dick; or The Whale - Herman Melville; 870
3. The Stranger Beside Me - Ann Rule; 1,542 
4. Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said - Philip K. Dick; 1,773
5. Duma Key - Stephen King; 2,384
6. Things I Overheard While Talking to Myself - Alan Alda; 2,608 
7. Greenwich Killing Time - Kinky Friedman; 2,774
8. Murder in the White House - Margaret Truman; 3,009
9. Dexter in the Dark - Jeff Lindsay; 3,312
10. The Idiot - Fyodor Dostoyevsky; 4,080 
11. The Taking - Dean Koontz; 4,544
12. Things Fall Apart - Chinua Achebe; 4,753
13. Me Talk Pretty One Day - David Sedaris; 5,025 
14. Middlemarch - George Eliot; 5,761
15. Beloved - Toni Morrison;6,036
16. The Scarlet Letter - Nathaniel Hawthorne; 6,228
17. The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood - Howard Pyle; 6,368
18. The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath; 6,612
19. Gadsby - Ernest Vincent Wright; 6,768
20. Pulp Fiction Selections - L. Ron Hubbard; 7,456
21. The Final Testament of the Holy Bible - James Frey; 7,856
22. Chili Dawgs Always Bark At Night -Lewis Grizzard; 8,125
23. The Greek - Pierre Rey; 8,573
24. The Pleasure of my Company - Steve Martin; 8,736
25. Fierce Invalids Home from Hot Climates - Tom Robbins; 9,200 
26. Possible Side Effects - Augusten Burroughs; 9,504
27. In Cold Blood - Truman Capote; 9,847
28. The Daybreakers - Louis L'Amour; 10,000

Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said

Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said - Philip K. Dick; 231 pgs


So far, this definitely has to be my favorite book of the summer, which I guess is somewhat surprising to me, because so far it is the only book on the list by an author I haven't read before, and the only book I started without any expectations for at all. The main thing I liked about Dick's writing style is he pretty much only wrote exactly what was needed in the book to prolong the plot. That is a huge deal to me while reading. It is the reason I loathe anything I have ever read by J.R.R. Tolkien, because his books are just filled with useless nonsense, wasteful descriptions, and he rarely, if ever gets to the point (now, this opinion may seem to be in contrast to the glowing review I gave of Moby Dick, but the purpose of that book was to give the reader the experience of being a whaler, and to do that, the reader needed extensive knowledge of whaling.)


At the beginning of the story there were terms and concepts I didn't understand at all, (sixes, etc.) and I was worried that I needed to be familiar with Dick's earlier works to understand what was going on, but in due time in the book, all of my questions were answered, and I finished the book happy and satisfied. 


1,773 pages in 13 days for an average of 136.38.


1. Swine Not? - Jimmy Buffett; 256 
2. Moby Dick; or The Whale - Herman Melville; 870
3. The Stranger Beside Me - Ann Rule; 1,542 
4. Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said - Philip K. Dick; 1,773
5. Duma Key - Stephen King; 2,384
6. Things I Overheard While Talking to Myself - Alan Alda; 2,608 
7. Greenwich Killing Time - Kinky Friedman; 2,774
8. Murder in the White House - Margaret Truman; 3,009
9. Dexter in the Dark - Jeff Lindsay; 3,312
10. The Idiot - Fyodor Dostoyevsky; 4,080 
11. The Taking - Dean Koontz; 4,544
12. Things Fall Apart - Chinua Achebe; 4,753
13. Me Talk Pretty One Day - David Sedaris; 5,025 
14. Middlemarch - George Eliot; 5,761
15. Beloved - Toni Morrison;6,036
16. The Scarlet Letter - Nathaniel Hawthorne; 6,228
17. The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood - Howard Pyle; 6,368
18. The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath; 6,612
19. Gadsby - Ernest Vincent Wright; 6,768
20. Pulp Fiction Selections - L. Ron Hubbard; 7,456
21. The Final Testament of the Holy Bible - James Frey; 7,856
22. Chili Dawgs Always Bark At Night -Lewis Grizzard; 8,125
23. The Greek - Pierre Rey; 8,573
24. The Pleasure of my Company - Steve Martin; 8,736
25. Fierce Invalids Home from Hot Climates - Tom Robbins; 9,200 
26. Possible Side Effects - Augusten Burroughs; 9,504
27. In Cold Blood - Truman Capote; 9,847
28. The Daybreakers - Louis L'Amour; 10,000

The Stranger Beside Me

The Stranger Beside Me - Ann Rule; 627 


This book was about Ted Bundy, written by a former coworker, and close acquaintance, Ann Rule. Spoiler alert, he's guilty. What I found most interesting about this book is that Ann Rule was a crime writer before she met Bundy, and was hired to write this book before it came out that Bundy was a suspect. Now, I don't know how I feel about it. I feel like the technical sections in this book were more tedious than in Moby Dick. And it seems like a common problem for me in all Ann Rule books that I try to ignore (because it isn't her fault, it's mine), but all the victims run together. There is just a bunch of women's names in close connection, with not much to identify them with, so when they are mentioned later in the book, I find myself flipping back to see which was which. Also, I guess why I didn't like this as much as her other books was there was no suspense. Even the things about Bundy I didn't know before were told in the first couple of chapters. I am sure at the time it was written everyone knew all about him and his escapes and his trials because they had watched them on the news, but the book was written four years before I was born. All I had heard about him were short little snippets here and there. But it was interesting to see the interaction between the two of them, and that unique perspective gives this book something that can't be recreated.

So now, 1,542 pages in 11.5 days. 134 pages per day, I am still ahead of schedule.

1. Swine Not? - Jimmy Buffett; 256 
2. Moby Dick; or The Whale - Herman Melville; 870
3. The Stranger Beside Me - Ann Rule; 1,542 
4. Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said - Philip K. Dick; 1,773
5. Duma Key - Stephen King; 2,384
6. Things I Overheard While Talking to Myself - Alan Alda; 2,608 
7. Greenwich Killing Time - Kinky Friedman; 2,774
8. Murder in the White House - Margaret Truman; 3,009
9. Dexter in the Dark - Jeff Lindsay; 3,312
10. The Idiot - Fyodor Dostoyevsky; 4,080 
11. The Taking - Dean Koontz; 4,544
12. Things Fall Apart - Chinua Achebe; 4,753
13. Me Talk Pretty One Day - David Sedaris; 5,025 
14. Middlemarch - George Eliot; 5,761
15. Beloved - Toni Morrison;6,036
16. The Scarlet Letter - Nathaniel Hawthorne; 6,228
17. The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood - Howard Pyle; 6,368
18. The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath; 6,612
19. Gadsby - Ernest Vincent Wright; 6,768
20. Pulp Fiction Selections - L. Ron Hubbard; 7,456
21. The Final Testament of the Holy Bible - James Frey; 7,856
22. Chili Dawgs Always Bark At Night -Lewis Grizzard; 8,125
23. The Greek - Pierre Rey; 8,573
24. The Pleasure of my Company - Steve Martin; 8,736
25. Fierce Invalids Home from Hot Climates - Tom Robbins; 9,200 
26. Possible Side Effects - Augusten Burroughs; 9,504
27. In Cold Blood - Truman Capote; 9,847
28. The Daybreakers - Louis L'Amour; 10,000

Swine Not? and Moby Dick

I will do my best to report on each book as it is read. That being said, the first week of the summer I spent computerless in a cabin in New Mexico, so I am going to do a little catch up and do the first two books finished in this single post.

Swine Not? - Jimmy Buffett; 256


First, I have to say I was a little disappointed, because I was hoping a book about a pig would be sillier. In  actuality, it was a book about a normal, single soccer mom raising her two kids and their pet pig. The chapters alternated between the point of view of the pig and one of the children. But it was just a normal family, and fairly normal situations. Not quite what I was expecting. Towards the end of the book the pig teamed up with some pigeons and it started to feel like the book I was hoping for, but it was too little too late.

Moby Dick - Herman Melville; 614


This book was also nothing that I expected, but in a good way. I thought it would be incredibly heavy and boring, an exhausting chore to get through. Not the case.

My high school English teacher once said her dark secret was she got all the way through with a masters in English having never read Moby Dick in its entirety, and I suppose that tainted my view on the book. She talked of how the long anatomical descriptions of whale anatomy and dissection were just too boring and tedious and she never got through them. I never found them to be too much, and plus each chapter is extremely short, so if you get to a part that doesn't particularly interest you, it is over soon. I suppose there are long stretches in it of no action, but I found the descriptions and that kind of thing in it very interesting. And as a bonus, I had heard from different sources that Ahab won and that the whale won, and luckily for me, I couldn't remember which source was credible and which one was my friend who claimed to have read it being a liar, so the suspense was still there.

Averaging 124 pages a day, I am in great shape to finish this list on time. 7 days in, 870 pages down.

1. Swine Not? - Jimmy Buffett; 256 
2. Moby Dick; or The Whale - Herman Melville; 870
3. The Stranger Beside Me - Ann Rule; 1,542 
4. Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said - Philip K. Dick; 1,773
5. Duma Key - Stephen King; 2,384
6. Things I Overheard While Talking to Myself - Alan Alda; 2,608 
7. Greenwich Killing Time - Kinky Friedman; 2,774
8. Murder in the White House - Margaret Truman; 3,009
9. Dexter in the Dark - Jeff Lindsay; 3,312
10. The Idiot - Fyodor Dostoyevsky; 4,080 
11. The Taking - Dean Koontz; 4,544
12. Things Fall Apart - Chinua Achebe; 4,753
13. Me Talk Pretty One Day - David Sedaris; 5,025 
14. Middlemarch - George Eliot; 5,761
15. Beloved - Toni Morrison;6,036
16. The Scarlet Letter - Nathaniel Hawthorne; 6,228
17. The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood - Howard Pyle; 6,368
18. The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath; 6,612
19. Gadsby - Ernest Vincent Wright; 6,768
20. Pulp Fiction Selections - L. Ron Hubbard; 7,456
21. The Final Testament of the Holy Bible - James Frey; 7,856
22. Chili Dawgs Always Bark At Night -Lewis Grizzard; 8,125
23. The Greek - Pierre Rey; 8,573
24. The Pleasure of my Company - Steve Martin; 8,736
25. Fierce Invalids Home from Hot Climates - Tom Robbins; 9,200 
26. Possible Side Effects - Augusten Burroughs; 9,504
27. In Cold Blood - Truman Capote; 9,847
28. The Daybreakers - Louis L'Amour; 10,000

256 Pagers

Not much explanation needed, I just noticed a lot of books were 256 pages long, wanted to see if I could make a whole list of them, with the exception of one book being 272 to make it hit the 10,000 page mark. You know, math.

Don't forget my official 10,000 Pages of Summer list can be found on the April 30 post.

256 Pagers

The Perks of Being a Wallflower – Stephen Chbosky 256

The Stickwick Staplers – Bernie Douglas 256

I Shouldn’t Even Be Doing This! – Bob Newhart 256

Forrest Gump – Winston Groom 256

Gump & Co. –Winston Groom 256

The Thing About Life Is That One Day You'll Be Dead – David Shields 256

The Vicar of Wakefield – Oliver Goldsmith 256

When Tomorrow Comes – Janette Oke 256

Damned – Chuck Palahniuk 256

Eternals – Neil Gaiman 256

The Songs of Distant – Arthur C. Clarke 256

Folly and Glory – Larry McMurtry 256

A Hole in Juan – Gillian Roberts 256

The Prosecution – Dudley W. Buffa 256

Gonville – Peter Birkenhead 256

Caravan to Vaccares – Alistair MacLean 256

Gunsights – Elmore Leonard 256

Monkey Shrines – Michael Stewart 256

King of the Holly Hop – Les Roberts 256

The Gunslinger – Stephen King 256

The Final Reflection – John M. Ford 256

The Ghost Horse – Les Savage, Jr. 256

A Brief History of Time – Stephen Hawking 256

Elephants Can Remember – Agatha Christie 256

The Spy Who Came in from the Cold – John LeCarre 256

Code Name Kill Zone – William W. Johnstone 256

A Lesson Before Dying – Ernest J. Gaines 256

All Shots – Susan Conant 256

The Chocolate Pirate Plot – Joanna Carl 256

Butcher Bird – Richard Kadrey 256

The Outcast – Luke Cypher 256

Lord of the Flies – William Golding 256

Holly – Jude Deveraux 256

Mindshadow - J.M. Dillard 256

Tricky Business – Dave Barry 256

The Darwin Awards II – Wendy Northcutt 256

The Final Warning – James Patterson 256

The Virgin Suicides – Jeffery Eugenides 256

The Choice – Nicholas Sparks 256+16

The Short List

Now, keep in mind, these new lists are not my summer reading list, but just various examples I came up with of other reading lists of exactly 10,000 pages, in hopes of others joining in on the project.

This list maybe shouldn't be called the short list, because almost all of these books are long as jank, but the list is short. My goal was to get the 10,000 pages in as few books as possible, this is what I came up with.

Count of Monte Cristo – Alexandre Dumas 1488

Les Miserables – Victor Hugo 1376

War and Peace – Leo Tolstoy 1408

Battlefield Earth – L. Ron Hubbard 1050

Atlas Shrugged – Ayn Rand 1200

It – Stephen King 1138

Don Quixote – Miguel de Cervantes 1024

Shogun – James Clavell 1152

The Broken Gun – Louis L’Amour 164

Nine books. Not bad! I really wanted to do it with all the books in the list over 1,000 pages, but I couldn't get the numbers to work. Oh well.

And I have no idea why I said long as jank. I know that isn't a real phrase, they aren't even all real words. My apologies.

Don't forget to check the April 30 post for the list I will be tackling this summer.

Classic Women

Well, after I completed my list of 10,000 pages, I thought it would be a neat idea if I came up with various other lists of 10,000 pages worth of books, and then other people of different interests could join in the 10,000 pages of summer without have to figure out the page count or whatever. It probably isn't a neat idea. So, the first list I made was classic books by women authors. Now, I formatted this list a little differently than my main one, I don't know why. It seems so much more confusing this way, but I divided it by author, but the individual page count of each book, and then put a page count for the author, then the running page count. Except the Bronte's, I put a total page count for all Bronte books, not a page count per author. And the last author, the last author I listed two books, but you only have to read one. If you read them both you will go over your page count. I just thought I would be nice and give you a choice. Well, it doesn't doesn't matter I guess, just trust me, it adds up to 10,000.

Jane Austen

Sense and Sensibility - 368

Pride and Prejudice - 424

Mansfield Park - 464

Emma - 462

Northanger Abbey - 254

Persuasion - 288

-2260

Charlotte Bronte

Jane Eyre - 624

Shirley - 624

Villette - 672

The Professor - 266

Emily Bronte

Wuthering Heights - 412

Anne Bronte

Agnes Grey - 180

The Tenant of Wildfell Hall - 496

-3274

*5534

Maria Susanna Cummins

The Lamplighter - 496

*6030

Kate Chopin

The Awakening - 128

*6158

George Eliot

Adam Bede - 346

The Mill on the Floss - 560

Silas Marner - 248

Romola - 648

Felix Holt, the Radical - 308

Middlemarch - 800

Daniel Deronda - 484

-3394

*9,552

M. E. Braddon

The Golden Calf

Or

Birds of Prey 448

10,000

I think most, if not all, of these are in public domain, so you can find them for free online or on your e-reader.

And don't forget you can see my finalized list on the April 30 entry. 

Little Changes

Those of you who were wondering (a.k.a. none of you) if the lack of updates on this page meant I had abandoned it, rest assured, no. That is stupid. This is a page about reading a list of books in the summer. The list was completed and the summer isn't here, there is no reason to post.

That being said, here is a new post. I am removing two books from the list, and adding five, but keeping the page count the same. The first three books are off of the required reading list for the masters program I am starting. (I started the 10,000 Pages of Summer before being accepted into the program, btw.) It just seemed so silly to have this massive reading list that I am supposed to be familiar with, and not including any of it (besides Moby Dick) in this undertaking. The fourth book is there because it is relevant to the direction I would like to take my individual graduate research, and the last book is simply the only book that fit the page counted I needed to keep it at 10,000 that I had actually heard of. 

To add the new books, I had to remove two from the list, Les Miserables and A Collection of H.P. Lovecraft Short Stories. The Lovecraft had to go because when I made the list, I did not realize that it was only available as an eBook, and Doug don't play that game. I mean, I sit in front of electronics almost all day every day. I read books to get away from it. The last thing I want to do is bring electronics into book reading. And Les Mis, I know it is a book I will read one day, but there are two reasons to take it off this list. First, I see absolutely no way I am going to enjoy the book as much as Adam Gibbs says I will. It just sounds so boring. And maybe I am being unfair to the book, but I have read the synopsis, I know the plot and themes, and it is just not the kind of thing I can see myself taking interest in. Second, when I got home with my copy of it, I noticed the title page contained the word "abridged." And if I was already dreading having to devote my time and attention to the book in my hand, I couldn't imagine having an unabridged, longer version in my hand and having to read that.


And last thing, this is another one of those weird times where instead of looking for the version of the book with the biggest page count, I actually went for the smallest one. I actually could have grabbed these five books at over 600 more pages, but I couldn't make the numbers on the first four come out to exactly the page count to keep with the 10,000 (even though I did come within five pages of it), so I went with the smallest page count for each one to have enough pages left over to add a decent book to the list to keep the 10,000 pages. 


14. Middlemarch - George Eliot (736 pgs) There are only two things I know about this book. 1.) It is on my required reading list. 2.) Despite being named George, the author is a woman. And not named George.

15. Beloved - Toni Morrison (275 pgs) Again, I just have basic knowledge of this book besides the fact that it is required reading and written by a woman.

16. The Scarlet Letter - Nathaniel Hawthorne (192 pgs)  It feels weird that this book is on the required reading list for my masters degree, and it was also required reading when I was a sophomore in high school. But, despite that, I am not breaking my "no reading a book I have already read" rule, because in high school, I just read the Cliffs Notes.

17. The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood - Howard Pyle (140 pgs) Planning on doing my independent research on the Robin Hood legend, and I can't really compare the old stuff to the latter if I haven't read the latter.

18. The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath (244 pgs) I am actually somewhat familiar with Plath. Having said that, I know her life story and I know of her poetry. But when it comes to the content of this book, I really don't know much. That being said, if it is not literally about a jar full of bells, I am going to throw a hiss fit.


And what I am pretty sure is the final reading list....


1. Swine Not? - Jimmy Buffett; 256 
2. Moby Dick; or The Whale - Herman Melville; 870
3. The Stranger Beside Me - Ann Rule; 1,542 
4. Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said - Philip K. Dick; 1,773
5. Duma Key - Stephen King; 2,384
6. Things I Overheard While Talking to Myself - Alan Alda; 2,608 
7. Greenwich Killing Time - Kinky Friedman; 2,774
8. Murder in the White House - Margaret Truman; 3,009
9. Dexter in the Dark - Jeff Lindsay; 3,312
10. The Idiot - Fyodor Dostoyevsky; 4,080 
11. The Taking - Dean Koontz; 4,544
12. Things Fall Apart - Chinua Achebe; 4,753
13. Me Talk Pretty One Day - David Sedaris; 5,025 
14. Middlemarch - George Eliot; 5,761
15. Beloved - Toni Morrison;6,036
16. The Scarlet Letter - Nathaniel Hawthorne; 6,228
17. The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood - Howard Pyle; 6,368
18. The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath; 6,612
19. Gadsby - Ernest Vincent Wright; 6,768
20. Pulp Fiction Selections - L. Ron Hubbard; 7,456
21. The Final Testament of the Holy Bible - James Frey; 7,856
22. Chili Dawgs Always Bark At Night -Lewis Grizzard; 8,125
23. The Greek - Pierre Rey; 8,573
24. The Pleasure of my Company - Steve Martin; 8,736
25. Fierce Invalids Home from Hot Climates - Tom Robbins; 9,200 
26. Possible Side Effects - Augusten Burroughs; 9,504
27. In Cold Blood - Truman Capote; 9,847
28. The Daybreakers - Louis L'Amour; 10,000

First Change

Adam Gibbs dropped his recommendation of The Sound and the Fury, so I am dropping it from the list. Mainly, because he said it might be a low point of my summer, and he is still insisting that I will love Les Miserables. So, I am replacing it with a Dean Koontz book. Well, I didn't have a lot of choices, as I had to choose a book with the same page count. Never read Koontz before, hoping it will be fast read and really keep my attention.

The corrected list:

1. Swine Not? - Jimmy Buffett; 256
2. Moby Dick; or The Whale - Herman Melville; 870
3. The Stranger Beside Me - Ann Rule; 1,542 
4. Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said - Philip K. Dick; 1,773
5. Duma Key - Stephen King; 2,384
6. Things I Overheard While Talking to Myself - Alan Alda; 2,608 
7. Greenwich Killing Time - Kinky Friedman; 2,774
8. Murder in the White House - Margaret Truman; 3,009
9. Dexter in the Dark - Jeff Lindsay; 3,312
10. The Idiot - Fyodor Dostoyevsky; 4,080
11. The Taking - Dean Koontz; 4,544
12. Things Fall Apart - Chinua Achebe; 4,753
13. Me Talk Pretty One Day - David Sedaris; 5,025
14. Les Miserables - Victor Hugo; 6,401
15. A Collection of H.P. Lovecraft Short Stories - H.P. Lovecraft; 6,612 
16. Gadsby - Ernest Vincent Wright; 6,768
17. Pulp Fiction Selections - L. Ron Hubbard; 7,456
18. The Final Testament of the Holy Bible - James Frey; 7,856
19. Chili Dawgs Always Bark At Night -Lewis Grizzard; 8,125
20. The Greek - Pierre Rey; 8,573
21. The Pleasure of my Company - Steve Martin; 8,736
22. Fierce Invalids Home from Hot Climates - Tom Robbins; 9,200
23. Possible Side Effects - Augusten Burroughs; 9,504
24. In Cold Blood - Truman Capote; 9,847
25. The Daybreakers - Louis L'Amour; 10,000

The last book and complete list

As I stated before, I am  not going to read one page over 10,000 pages, so my last book must have a 153 page count. So I tried to search Amazon, but I had much difficulty searching by page count. So I went to Ebay, searched books for "153 pages," allowing for search within product description, and I got a lot of results. I sifted through them until I found something decent, and without further ado, here it is, book no. 25, and the completion of my summer reading list.

25. The Daybreakers - Louis L'Amour (153 pgs) Now it is worth nothing that this book is unique in the list, because the majority of the other books I did seek out and acquire the edition with the highest page count, and this book has editions with page counts higher than 220, but I found a 1960 edition with 153 pages, the perfect completion of the 10,000 Pages of Summer. 0 pages to go.

1. Swine Not? - Jimmy Buffett; 256
2. Moby Dick; or The Whale - Herman Melville; 870
3. The Stranger Beside Me - Ann Rule; 1,542 
4. Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said - Philip K. Dick; 1,773
5. Duma Key - Stephen King; 2,384
6. Things I Overheard While Talking to Myself - Alan Alda; 2,608 
7. Greenwich Killing Time - Kinky Friedman; 2,774
8. Murder in the White House - Margaret Truman; 3,009
9. Dexter in the Dark - Jeff Lindsay; 3,312
10. The Idiot - Fyodor Dostoyevsky; 4,080
11. The Sound and the Fury - William Faulkner; 4,544
12. Things Fall Apart - Chinua Achebe; 4,753
13. Me Talk Pretty One Day - David Sedaris; 5,025
14. Les Miserables - Victor Hugo; 6,401
15. A Collection of H.P. Lovecraft Short Stories - H.P. Lovecraft; 6,612 
16. Gadsby - Ernest Vincent Wright; 6,768
17. Pulp Fiction Selections - L. Ron Hubbard; 7,456
18. The Final Testament of the Holy Bible - James Frey; 7,856
19. Chili Dawgs Always Bark At Night -Lewis Grizzard; 8,125
20. The Greek - Pierre Rey; 8,573
21. The Pleasure of my Company - Steve Martin; 8,736
22. Fierce Invalids Home from Hot Climates - Tom Robbins; 9,200
23. Possible Side Effects - Augusten Burroughs; 9,504
24. In Cold Blood - Truman Capote; 9,847
25. The Daybreakers - Louis L'Amour; 10,000

Getting towards the end

Now, it is definitely down to the wire and time to really be picky about what books to put in. 1,624 can easily be covered by three books, and where before I was trying to think of any three books to put in just to get to the ridiculously high number of 10,000, now I don't want to waste the precious little space I have left on my list with anything I won't absolutely love.

22. Fierce Invalids Home from Hot Climates - Tom Robbins (464 pgs) Robbins wrote one of my top three favorite books of all time Jitterbug Perfume, and I also really enjoyed Villa Incognito, Skinny Legs and All and others. But I have also started some of his books and lost interest halfway through and never finished. Let's hope this is one I will really enjoy. 800 pages to go.

23. Possible Side Effects - Augusten Burroughs (304 pgs) Not much to say about why I chose this book, I just really like Burroughs. 496 pages to go.

24. In Cold Blood - Truman Capote (343 pgs) Not much to say about this one either. I have just always wanted to read it, and I found it once at an estate sale for a quarter. 153 pages to go.

Now here is where it gets tricky. I am going to read 10,000 this summer, and only 10,000 pages. (Of books anyway, I am not going to count website, newspaper or magazine pages.) So now, I have to find one or more books that add up to exactly 153 pages. And I am going to be honest, the first 153 page book I find, I am probably buying, no matter what.

1. Swine Not? - Jimmy Buffett; 256
2. Moby Dick; or The Whale - Herman Melville; 870
3. The Stranger Beside Me - Ann Rule; 1,542 
4. Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said - Philip K. Dick; 1,773
5. Duma Key - Stephen King; 2,384
6. Things I Overheard While Talking to Myself - Alan Alda; 2,608 
7. Greenwich Killing Time - Kinky Friedman; 2,774
8. Murder in the White House - Margaret Truman; 3,009
9. Dexter in the Dark - Jeff Lindsay; 3,312
10. The Idiot - Fyodor Dostoyevsky; 4,080
11. The Sound and the Fury - William Faulkner; 4,544
12. Things Fall Apart - Chinua Achebe; 4,753
13. Me Talk Pretty One Day - David Sedaris; 5,025
14. Les Miserables - Victor Hugo; 6,401
15. A Collection of H.P. Lovecraft Short Stories - H.P. Lovecraft; 6,612 
16. Gadsby - Ernest Vincent Wright; 6,768
17. Pulp Fiction Selections - L. Ron Hubbard; 7,456
18. The Final Testament of the Holy Bible - James Frey; 7,856
19. Chili Dawgs Always Bark At Night -Lewis Grizzard; 8,125
20. The Greek - Pierre Rey; 8,573
21. The Pleasure of my Company - Steve Martin; 8,736
22. Fierce Invalids Home from Hot Climates - Tom Robbins; 9,200
23. Possible Side Effects - Augusten Burroughs; 9,504
24. In Cold Blood - Truman Capote; 9,847

The "Shopping on my bookshelf" 3

These three are books that I have owned for a while and never read. I am sure I am not the only one who owns a lot of books they have never read. For me at least, every time I want to read a new book I go to the bookstore, and usually every time I go I buy more than one book. Want to read a book, buy two, read one, repeat. That means I have tons of "leftovers," books I wanted to read enough to buy them, but put them on a shelf for a later day. Here are three of those.

19. Chili Dawgs Always Bark At Night -Lewis Grizzard (269 Pgs) Grizzard is the author I remember my dad reading when I was a kid (well, Grizzard and Forest Gump, years before it was a movie). The name recognition has caused me to buy his books every time I have seen them at a used bookstore or thrift shop, and most of them I have read. This one I haven't yet. 1,875 pages to go.

20. The Greek - Pierre Rey (448 pgs) I have no idea what this book is, what it is about, anything about the author, etc. The only thing I know about this book is I have never been to a used bookstore or thrift shop where I haven't seen several copies for sale. So I have to make the assumption that it was once (or maybe still is) a very popular book, and it must have sold *many* copies. But for some reason, all those copies are now at a second hand stores. So, maybe this book is good enough to read once and then pass it on? 1,472 pages to go.

21. The Pleasure of my Company - Steve Martin (163 pgs) Why would the cover of this book say, "From the author of Shopgirl?" Is there anyone buying this book based on Steve Martin's reputation as a novelist and not just his comedy career in general? I have to say, I love Martin's book Pure Drivel. Just the fact that someone took the time to write such silly things down on a page, and then got someone to publish it and people buy it as a legitimate book is really inspirational to me. He said something in Pure Drivel that has stuck with me more than anything in serious literature. It was talking about how to get a good agent, and I am paraphrasing here, but it says each agent has a gender. It is important to know their gender and use the appropriate pronoun for it when referring to your agent. Male agents like to be called he, and female agents prefer she. 1,264 pages to go.

1. Swine Not? - Jimmy Buffett; 256
2. Moby Dick; or The Whale - Herman Melville; 870
3. The Stranger Beside Me - Ann Rule; 1,542 
4. Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said - Philip K. Dick; 1,773
5. Duma Key - Stephen King; 2,384
6. Things I Overheard While Talking to Myself - Alan Alda; 2,608 
7. Greenwich Killing Time - Kinky Friedman; 2,774
8. Murder in the White House - Margaret Truman; 3,009
9. Dexter in the Dark - Jeff Lindsay; 3,312
10. The Idiot - Fyodor Dostoyevsky; 4,080
11. The Sound and the Fury - William Faulkner; 4,544
12. Things Fall Apart - Chinua Achebe; 4,753
13. Me Talk Pretty One Day - David Sedaris; 5,025
14. Les Miserables - Victor Hugo; 6,401
15. A Collection of H.P. Lovecraft Short Stories - H.P. Lovecraft; 6,612 
16. Gadsby - Ernest Vincent Wright; 6,768
17. Pulp Fiction Selections - L. Ron Hubbard; 7,456
18. The Final Testament of the Holy Bible - James Frey; 7,856
19. Chili Dawgs Always Bark At Night -Lewis Grizzard; 8,125
20. The Greek - Pierre Rey; 8,573
21. The Pleasure of my Company - Steve Martin; 8,736

The post Adam Gibbs 3

Surely one day someone will want to Google Adam Gibbs, and I want to make sure when they do, they find this page first. Why else would this page say his name more than his own Facebook?

16. Gadsby - Ernest Vincent Wright (156 pgs) This is the book that is famous for being a full length novel and not containing a single letter "e." It is also famous for no one buying it when it came out. It survived out of curiosity for the novelty of it, but I have never heard anyone say it was a good or interesting book. But it is short enough. I am kind of leery of it though, because it is probably going to be really boring, and it is coming off of the Adam Gibbs 6, and let's face it, there is a reason I have never read Les Miserables. 3,232 pages to go.

17. Pulp Fiction Selections - L. Ron Hubbard (688 pgs) I know in an earlier post I said I wanted to stick to one book per author, but come on, after the Adam Gibbs 6 I deserve 688 pages of fast paced pulp fiction. Now, I know nothing of L. Ron apart from the fact he founded Scientology. I have heard his pulp fiction was quite average, but all of the books have glowing reader reviews. Of course, I have to wonder if the reviews are non-biased, but still, the concepts for each of the books I am reading seemed really interesting, and each book is fairly short, so each one should be a quick read. And for the curious, here are the L. Ron books I will be reading: Cargo of Coffins, Danger in the Dark, The Carnival of Death, Dead Men Kill, and Hostage to Death. 2,544 pages to go.


18. The Final Testament of the Holy Bible - James Frey (400 pgs) Okay, I was wrong, there is a new Frey book I can read. And it really isn't news to me that it exists, I guess since I loved his previous three books so much, I have convinced myself that there is no way I will like the new one as much. We will see. I am sure it is great. 2,144 pages to go.

The list so far and running page count:
1. Swine Not? - Jimmy Buffett; 256
2. Moby Dick; or The Whale - Herman Melville; 870
3. The Stranger Beside Me - Ann Rule; 1,542 
4. Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said - Philip K. Dick; 1,773
5. Duma Key - Stephen King; 2,384
6. Things I Overheard While Talking to Myself - Alan Alda; 2,608 
7. Greenwich Killing Time - Kinky Friedman; 2,774
8. Murder in the White House - Margaret Truman; 3,009
9. Dexter in the Dark - Jeff Lindsay; 3,312
10. The Idiot - Fyodor Dostoyevsky; 4,080
11. The Sound and the Fury - William Faulkner; 4,544
12. Things Fall Apart - Chinua Achebe; 4,753
13. Me Talk Pretty One Day - David Sedaris; 5,025
14. Les Miserables - Victor Hugo; 6,401
15. A Collection of H.P. Lovecraft Short Stories - H.P. Lovecraft; 6,612 
16. Gadsby - Ernest Vincent Wright; 6,768
17. Pulp Fiction Selections - L. Ron Hubbard; 7,456
18. The Final Testament of the Holy Bible - James Frey; 7,856