Wow.
I'm an obsessive sort, so I thought I'd check how many books I'd read. I started keeping count in 2013, but I also had a blog before that, and some journals. Digging though all that, I came up with 869 books. I'm currently averaging 60-70 books a year. He averaged about 60 a year.
If I'd kept a tally for 61 years like him and read at the rate that I am currently, I might have been able to come close to his total. Alas, late start. And while I was working, I read fewer books - in part because as a teacher I was reading the same books over and over each year. How many times did I reread To Kill a Mockingbird, Jane Eyre, The Scarlet Letter, Romeo and Juliet, and so on as I was teaching them? If I counted each rereading that could easily add 40-50 to my tally. But I don't count them, and even if I did, it would not be enough.
If I keep up my current rate, I'll have more than 2,000 books read by the time I reach his age.
Not even close to his remarkable total.
Among those works I've read are many by Chesterton. Here's what I have on that list from Chesterton so far:
The Coloured Lands by G. K. Chesterton
G. K. Chesterton’s Early Poetry
Lepanto: With Explanatory Notes and Commentary by G. K. Chesterton
The Ballad of the White Horse by G.K. Chesterton
St. Thomas Aquinas: The Dumb Ox by G. K. Chesterton
St. Francis of Assisi by G. K. Chesterton
Heretics by G. K. Chesterton
Orthodoxy by G. K. Chesterton
The Everlasting Man by G. K. Chesterton
Autobiography by G. K. Chesterton
In Defense of Sanity: The Best Essays of G. K. Chesterton
Tremendous Trifles by G. K. Chesterton
Chesterton in Black and White
Manalive by G.K. Chesterton
The Poet and the Lunatics by G. K. Chesterton
The Man Who Was Thursday by G. K. Chesterton
The Napoleon of Notting Hill by G. K. Chesterton
The Club of Queer Trades by G. K. Chesterton
The Flying Inn by G.K. Chesterton
The Ball and the Cross by G. K. Chesterton
The Incredulity of Father Brown by G. K. Chesterton
The Wisdom of Father Brown by G. K. Chesterton
The Secret of Father Brown by G.K. Chesterton
The Innocence of Father Brown by G. K, Chesterton
The Scandal of Father Brown by G. K. by some of his "friends" Chesterton -
“The Donnington Affair” by G. K. Chesterton
“The Vampire of the Village” by G. K. Chesterton
“The Mask of Midas” by G. K. Chesterton
Magic by G. K. Chesterton
"The Turkey and the Turk" by G. K. Chesterton
"What You Won’t" by G. K. Chesterton
The Surprise by G. K. Chesterton
The Judgement of Dr. Johnson by G. K. Chesterton
There are parts of other books I've read - essays mostly. But I didn't count them as I hadn't read all of the books.
Then there are books about Chesterton I've read, and books by some of his "friends" - Belloc, Sayers, Lewis, Tolkien, Williams - but that's for another post.
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