Over 4,000

As promised, IQ84 and REAMDE were on the reading list for this year.

The big surprise for me is that I put off the big books thinking they would slow me down and prohibit me from reaching my arbitrary goal of 30 books for last year.

This year, here were are, about 1/4 in, and I've cleared 12 books, including REAMDE and IQ84.

This puts me at 12/30 (for the historical book-based goal) or 4,164/9,000 for my page goal, with slightly less than 75% of the year to go.

Not bad on either scale.

Of course, IQ84 was on vacation and REAMDE has been an exercise in recovering from the close of the quarter which resulted in me altering my workout schedules so I could read during cardio. This was really only possible because I'm not training for anything.

In short, I'm impressed with where I am and have enjoyed this year's reading, but I doubt it's sustainable if I want to live my life on all axes.

That being said, REAMDE was awesomely distracting, entertaining, and worth the work-out re-alignment if you're looking for a great (long) book.

As my workout modifications suggest, it was one of the most addictive books I've read in ages. I substituted much more time on the recumbant bike and stairclimber than originally planned so I could turn these pages. This is no doubt due in part to the author's commitment to linguistics (if you just started studying Mandarin, this book has tantalizing bits to taunt you), and his commitment to the 2nd Amendment Gun-Nut Pacific Northwest culture, which I probably almost understand inherently due to my California 2nd-amendment-friendly family, but recently, experienced first hand during our 2011 tour of the Pacific Northwest (including Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming).

In other news, I'm ordering Stephenson's Baroque Cycle trilogy, soon.