The list continues, the Adam Gibbs 6

Have I previously mentioned Adam Gibbs's name in this? I don't know if I have or not, and if you know me, you know I don't feel like going back and reading what I have already posted to see if I have. I would much rather write a long, rambling about why I am not checking instead of actually checking. Anyway, I texted him today to see if he I should add Ulysses to the list, because he is the only person I know who has read the whole thing, and like Moby Dick, this is just one of those books I feel like I have to read, even though I feel like it will be long and boring. His reply to me actually included the phrase "tackling it when you have some time to enjoy it." Pssh. I never in my life plan to read it to enjoy. Just something to trudge through. Anyway, he gave me some suggestions to add to the list, so here ya go. And even though I said I would limit each entry to 3 books, I am doubling it here as to not devote two blog entries to Adam Gibbs. And I am not going to go through these and give the reason why I am reading each one like I do in the others because I already told you, the only reason I am reading any of them is because Adam Gibbs said to. Eh, scratch that. I could at least give you the reason Adam Gibbs gave me.


10. The Idiot - Fyodor Dostoyevsky (768 pgs) Gibbs said, "What are your criteria for the 10,000 pages? Does it have to be respected literature? You could knock out the Dostoyevsky canon. He wrote long books but they were fairly quick reads." Well, I am trying to stick with one book per author, and the copy I found of The Idiot was about 300 pages longer than the copy I found of Crime and Punishment, so here it is. 5,920 pages to go.

11. The Sound and the Fury - William Faulkner (464 pgs) Gibbs said, "This semester I'm taking a Faulkner class. I'm trying to get ahead and so far The Sound and the Fury is a fairly decent quick read." Yeah, Gibbs is going for a second masters degree right now, over achiever. 5,456 pages to go.

12. Things Fall Apart - Chinua Achebe (209 pgs) Gibbs said, "If you haven't read it yet, put Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart on your list. Only a couple hundred pages but it's an awesome story and you could get through it in an afternoon. 5,247 pages to go.

13. Me Talk Pretty One Day - David Sedaris (272 pgs) Gibbs said, "Everything ever written by David Sedaris." I said, "Who?" Gibbs said, "You aren't familiar with David Sedaris? Start with Me Talk Pretty One Day." And at this point I will have effectively reached the halfway point. Hopefully it will be the end of June, 4th of July at the latest. 4,975 pages to go.

14. Les Miserables - Victor Hugo (1376 pgs) Gibbs said, "Ever read Les Mis?" 3,599 pages to go.

15. A Collection of H.P. Lovecraft Short Stories - H.P. Lovecraft (211 pgs) "Cool. And read a book of Lovecraft short stories. They're cheesy fantastic." 3,388 pages to go.

And that is the end of the Adam Gibbs section of the summer, so here is the list up to this point with 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

The list, books 7-9

I need to start picking longer books. These 3 combined are going to get me 704 pages. Considering that two of the books in my first set of 3 have over 600 pages, plowing through 3 books and only getting 704 pages seems kind of disheartening, but it really shouldn't. A page is a page. It doesn't matter if I read a 10,000 page book, or a hundred 100 page books, it will all take the same time. But I do think that reading a bunch of shorter books would be faster than one long one, because I have the attention span of a juvenile wombat. And if you have ever tried to get one of those to pay attention to you more than five minutes you know it is a losing battle. Now, this set of three is all murder mysteries, which may make this a long stretch for me, because they honestly are not my favorite books, but maybe it will work for me.

7. Greenwich Killing Time - Kinky Friedman (166 pgs) When I lived in Lubbock, I had a friend call me from the cigar store he worked at to tell me Kinky Friedman was there. So I rushed over with my wife and a fellow named Stegall and got to meet him. And that encounter led to a phone call from a kind of annoyed dad that night to inform me that he saw "(me) and Kinky Friedman on the TV, with (our) arms around each other both holding big cigars." While we were there Kinky's sidekick Little Jewford told someone "Kinky will sign anything for ya" which of course made me want to go home and grab one of my Kinky books to get signed. The reason I didn't take one with me was because my friend who ran the cigar store told me that last time Kinky was in he was selling his new book, and I didn't want to be "that guy" who brings his old books to a book signing when the author is pushing his new one. So Stegall, Holly and I ran to a nearby book store to purchase Kinky books, took them back and got them signed. But this book isn't the one he signed for me. I read that one a long time ago. Which I know now makes this huge long story seem kind of useless and like a waste of time, but, eh, once I get started rambling... 7,226 pages to go.

8. Murder in the White House - Margaret Truman (235 pgs) I went to an auction one time and bought a box of books because it had a Jimmy Buffett book on the top (A Pirate Looks at Fifty), but every other book in the box was called Murder in (Some Washington, D.C. location). Apparently President Truman's daughter wrote a lot of books about people getting murdered in D.C., and I own them all. Yay. So I feel like I ought to give them a shot, because if I like them, I am set. So I Googled to see which one was written first and it is this one, so I am reading it first. 6,991 pages to go.

9. Dexter in the Dark - Jeff Lindsay (303 pgs) Got this in a bargain bin day after Christmas in 2010. I like the show so surely I will like the book. It does kind of bug me that I will be reading a book in a series without reading the first book, but I have seen all the TV shows, surely I will be able figure out what is going on. 6,688 pages to go.

Full list/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
 

Continuing the list

So, I figured this adding 3 books a post thing sounded like a good idea, so that's how I will continue, at least for now. So here we go.

4. Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said - Philip K. Dick (231 pgs) I have never read Philip K. Dick, and honestly, the only reason I have heard of him is because I have some friends who talk about him with me, but talk about him in a way that makes it very obvious that they think I know who he is, and can contribute to the conversation. And I usually just say, "uh huh," "yeah," and "good point." So I read the summaries of 3 or 4 of Dick's books and decided this one fit my interest the most. 8,227 pages to go.

5. Duma Key - Stephen King (611 pgs) I have never read anything by Stephen King. ANYTHING. And I don't know why, but for some reason when I got an Amazon.com gift card for Christmas, I tried to see how many Stephen King books I could get for $25, because that is how much the gift card was for, and how much I had to spend to get free shipping. And of the 5 I got, this one was the longest, and we all know the point of this thing quantity, not quality. 7,616 pages to go.

6. Things I Overheard While Talking to Myself - Alan Alda (224 pgs) I read Alda's Never Have Your Dog Stuffed a few years ago, and loved it. So, I am reading the follow up. 7,392 pages to go.

And I realize posting these 3 at a time would put the books out of order, so at the bottom of each post I will put the books in order and with 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 

Starting the list

Even though I am just about 5 months away from the massive undertaking, I am starting the preparations. Mainly, the list will consist of two categories, books I want to read, and books I feel I should read. All of the books, however, will be books I have not read before. That last rule makes me kind of sad, because that means it will be a summer without reading some of my favorite authors (James Frey, Douglas Adams, etc.) Of course it is possible for Frey to release another book before school starts up in August, but I am pretty sure Adams won't.

Now on to this list (which is in the order that I will be reading them, because it will really bug me not to have a completed list in order before I start.) And this isn't set in stone, I can change my mind anytime I want. Like a woman.

1. Swine Not? - Jimmy Buffett (256 pgs) This book I bought in a bargain bin about a year ago, and I know nothing about it except it is written by Jimmy Buffett and is about a pig. But, it should be a fun and easy read, a warm up before I have to read Moby Dick, which is going to be horrible. 9,744 pages to go.

2. Moby Dick; or The Whale - Herman Melville (614 pgs) I hate this book. Hate it, hate it, hate it. I have tried to read it before, and never gotten past a page and a half. But it is the literary equivalent of my Everest (my white whale if you will; wink wink, nudge nudge). It drives me crazy that I have never read it, and I think finally reading it will give me a huge sense of satisfaction when I am done. I put it at the beginning so I can just get it over with, it won't be looming over my head and taking the fun out of this for me. (One time I put it in the bathroom, thinking even if it took me 10 years, if I read it a little bit every day I would  finally have it read. That was the year I learned how interesting ingredients were on shampoo bottles.) 9,130 pages to go.

3. The Stranger Beside Me - Ann Rule (672 pgs) This one kind of falls into the wants and needs to read categories. Besides comedies, my favorite types of books are true crime, and Ann Rule is my favorite true crime writer. (I have a personal vendetta against Patricia Cornwell, and even though I have been told it is extremely petty, I won't read her books. I have heard she is good, but I refuse to read them. Even after I heard O.J. Simpson's glowing endorsement, it wasn't enough to bring me to read it.) But, like I said, I love her true crime books, but never read the one that put her on the map. 8,458 pages to go.