10,100 Pages

The official count is in and I accomplished my goal of reading 10,000 pages in one year. In fact, I beat my goal by 100 pages by finishing off Tony Hillerman's Skeleton Man this evening to get myself to my goal. For those who were or weren't keeping track, here is my official list of books that I read in 2010.

Title	Author
The New American Expatriate	William Russell Melton
The Blade Itself	Joe Abercrombie
Before They Are Hanged	Joe Abercrombie
Last Argument of Kings	Joe Abercrombie
All Quiet on the Western Front	Erich Maria LeMarque
Ender's Game	Orson Scott Card
The Long Dark Tea Time of the Soul	Douglas Adams
The Prince	Niccolo Machiavelli
Siddhartha	Herman Hesse
A Game of Thrones	George R. R. Martin
Free Prize Inside	Seth Godin
Persuasion	Jane Austen
Heart of Darkness and Other Stories	James Conrad
A Clash of Kings	George R. R. Martin
How the Irish Saved Civilization	Thomas Cahill
Water for Elephants	Sara Gruen
Blood of Elves	Andrzej Sapkowski
Thunderhead	Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child
A Storm of Swords	George R. R. Martin
Catcher in the Rye	J.D. Salinger
A Feast for Crows	George R. R. Martin
The Graveyard Book	Neil Gaiman
Skeleton Man	Tony Hillerman

23 books total. I hope everybody else met their reading goals as well this year. I don't think I'm going to set the bar as high next year, mostly because I plan on setting some writing goals for the new year. Happy New Year's everybody!

Persuasion by Jane Austen

Just because I got back late (and I got a request for an update on my reading goals), today you get at Book Report. Stupid Things I've Done will be Friday thing this week. Look for it tomorrow . . .

Some of you may remember that I traveled over to Bristol and Bath a few months ago. On visiting Bath, I learned that the city was once Jane Austen's home and I even visited a Jane Austen Museum. The city was also frequently a setting for Ms. Austen's novels - specifically Northanger Abbey and Persuasion. Though I had not read either of those two novels, I had read both Pride & Prejudice and Emma. So while I was at the museum, I thought I'd pick up one of the novels that was based in the city. Opting for the novel written later in her career, I bought a copy of Persuasion.

Reading the novel was a pleasant enough experience. Reading Austen, like reading Shakespeare, takes a little bit of time to get accustomed to. You need to read a few chapters before you get into the language of the era. One thing I can admit was that the book was alive to me. Having just visited the city of Bath, I could easily envision the atmosphere and could picture the places that Austen names in her book. The assembly halls were fresh in my memory and I remember walking The Circus and The Royal Crescent.

Persuasion is quite critical of the Bath aristocracy, painting them as duplicitous and untrustworthy. Simultaneously it idealized the simple values of the country folk. As with the other two novels of Austen's that I have read, the plot focuses on the misunderstanding and miscommunication that occurs between men and women. So it's no surprise that the plot is resolved when the two would-be lovers finally talk frankly to each other instead of relying on their own perceptions and the perceptions of others who might persuade them. Still, a fun read, though.

Since I find it hard to compare Austen to other fiction, I can only compare this work to her others that I've read. I found it more interesting than Emma, but less interesting than Pride and Prejudice.

As far as my 10,000 pages goal, I'm still behind schedule (I have 2 book reports yet to write for you all on other pieces I've completed) but I'm in the neighborhood of 6000 pages with 3 months to go. I better get busy reading!

How the Irish Saved Civilization by Thomas Cahill

I've often seen this book on the shelves at the book store and have always tempted to buy it. I just never pulled the trigger. Recently, when I was back in the United States (for a weekend), I stepped into the local used book store with my niece and we both walked out with an armful of books (for very little cash). My stack of books included this one by Thomas Cahill.

So how exactly did the Irish save civilization? I'll try to summarize as best I can.

At the point in history when the Holy Roman Empire was collapsing, Ireland was converting to Catholicism under St. Patrick. Ireland's geographic location aided them in their ability to seclude themselves from the barbarians in France and Germany that were one of the causes of the fall of Rome.

As St. Patrick was evangelizing Ireland, a trail of abbeys were left in his wake. These abbeys, protected from the barbarians by geography, were the seeds of civilization that fell from the flower of Rome (which had in turn, preserved civilized thought from Greece). Without these abbeys copying texts and adding their own Irish form (writing down their own oral tradition in the margins) to the newly copied texts, books such as The Bible and Plato's Republic may not have survived. The Book of Kells is the oldest existing copy of The Bible and it sits on display at Trinity College in Dublin. What St. Patrick started and St. Brigit continued in Ireland was passed on for three hundred years and the evangelistic Irish monks reached all the way back to Rome, planting the seeds of civilization along the way.

That is . . . until the Vikings came. The arrival of the Vikings in Ireland began the downfall of the Irish influence on civilization as the bejeweled texts (housed in the abbeys) were highly desired loot by the Viking raiders. Thousands of books were stolen or destroyed as Vikings raided the abbeys along the rocky coasts of Ireland. The Book of Kells survived only by being moved further inland to the city of Kells from whence it receives its name. The Vikings eventially created coastal settlements in Ireland and came to influence the Irish culture in their own fashion, but that - as they say - is a story for a different day.

As for books, I found it very informative and pertinent to all of the Irish monastic sites that I've visited. However, if you didn't find the above intriguing, you can probably do without reading this book. This book gets a 6.5 (out of 10) on the HRputer book rating scale.

A Clash of Kings by George R.R. Martin

A Clash of Kings is the second book in Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire. You may remember that I raved about the first book of the series: A Game of Thrones. This book was equally well written and the characters still intrigue the reader. However, I found that outside of progressing characters through their story lines, the plot was a little lacking.

As I've pointed out before, I'm not a fan of shifting viewpoints. I was not overly offended by the shifting viewpoints in the previous book, but in this book, it got under my skin. We lost a viewpoint from the previous book, so Martin felt he needed to add another viewpoint to the story - that of Theon Greyjoy. Theon's viewpoint appears to be unneeded, but we'll see what happens in Book 3. He could factor in quite considerably.

I also have a hard time reading chapters about Danaerys Targaryen. Through two books her viewpoint has been present, but her story lies so far removed from the other viewpoints that I struggle with understanding the value of her story. I can tell that eventually she'll have a larger part to play in the main plot, but I'm getting impatient as I've read 1800 pages of this saga and she hasn't.

Jon Snow's story, however, progressed well and culminated to an excellent climax. I am still anxious to start the third book (mostly to find out what happens to Jon Snow and Arya Stark), but I really hope that Martin starts to pull everything together. I felt that this particular book was 1000 pages of bridgework between major occurrences. The feud between the Baratheon brothers just didn't interest me as much because they were minor characters in the previous book.

This book gets an 8 (out of 10) on the HRputer book rating scale, falling a little behind Book 1 (which scored a perfect 10).

The Heart of Darkness and Other Stories by Joseph Conrad

Beth and I traveled back to Ireland today with RJ in tow. My brain isn't working quite yet so I doubt that I'll say anything profound about this book that I finished a couple of weeks ago. Joseph Conrad's novella "The Heart of Darkness" was a hard book for me to get through.

I found the frame narrative style quite difficult to read. The point of view is of somebody being told a story to, but the entire novella is essentially in quotes, dictated by the main character, Marlow. Still the story is good. Good enough for Francis Ford Coppola to make it into a film (though the time and location were changed). You might have heard of the movie: Apocalypse Now.

The story deals with a character, Kurtz, who develops a god-complex ruling over local tribesmen in the heart of the dark continent, Congo. In the beginning of the story, Kurtz is held in high esteem by Marlow, but as Marlow uncovers the mysteries surrounding Kurtz, he discovers Kurtz's heart of darkness and the evil that he commits to obtain ivory.

Good story, hard narrative style. I don't know if I need to recommend this book. I'll be checking out Apocalypse Now to see how the story was adapted and perhaps I will recommend the movie to you instead.

As far as my 10,000 pages goal is concerned, I am about 600 pages behind at halfway through the year. So I'm on target to hit about 9,000 pages unless I pick up the pace. The next book I'll be reading is the 1000 page monster sequel to A Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin, so I expect to catch up quickly.

Siddhartha by Herman Hesse

I had the opportunity to read another classic. This one by Herman Hesse. Before I start into my understanding of the book, I will preface it with a quote taken directly from the book: "What is a treasure and wisdom to one man always sounds like utter foolishness to another."

Although this isn't one of the best books that I have ever read, it is one of the most profound books that I have ever read. This is another easy read you can probably go through in a night and the nuggets of wisdom that you will find between the covers is absolutely amazing. To quote just a few:

"Seeking means: having a goal. But finding means: being free, being open, having no goal."

"Writing is good, thinking is better. Cleverness is good, patience is better."

"If a person has nothing to eat, fasting is the most prudent course. If, for example, Siddhartha had not learned how to fast, to day he would have had to accept some kind of-any kind of-employment, whether with or somewhere else, because hunger would have driven him to it. But as it is Siddhartha can wait calmly, he knows no impatience, he knows no distress, he can let hunger besiege him for a long time and laugh as well. For that reason, Sir, fasting is good."

Throughout the book, you follow Siddhartha on his path to self discovery. Some of the things that he discovers about himself are sad like the realization that people like him cannot love. Love is the blessing of the "child people" as he calls them.

This is a book that I will read again.

Free Prize Inside by Seth Godin

Sometimes a book doesn't need to teach you something new for it to be worth reading. Sometimes it just needs to remind you of what you already know. This is one of those books. If you'd like to learn everything that you already know about Marketing, this book is for you. However, it's hard to be critical of a book that I pulled out of the dollar bin at Borders. I mean, what could I possibly expect for a dollar?

So here's the advice that this book gives:

1. Don't develop something new, rather develop a marketable improvement to something that's already a viable product (a "soft innovation" as he calls it). Developing something new costs a lot of money and the return on investment is often watered down by the fact that you've invested a bunch of money into it. If you remember getting the "free prize inside" in boxes of cereal, that's exactly what he's talking about. The cereal companies didn't fundamentally change the product they were selling, they just gave their consumers a free prize that made the whole package more marketable.

2. Godin also preaches how throwing large sums of advertising dollars into advertising campaigns is no longer a viable marketing scheme. "Interruptions" happen far too frequently today for it to create a lasting impression, or any impression at all. So instead of paying for advertising, give the customer a "free prize." Example: Amazon.com, stopped advertising and put it's advertising budget into their free shipping program. Result: 37% increase in sales. Add value to your customer and you get returns. If your addition does not add value to the customer, it will not give you returns. If you've done your job right, your customer will sell your product for you.

3. Lastly, he gives some ideas on how to champion an idea through the company. In essence, it's an internal marketing scheme that creates a buzz about the soft innovation that you've created. You need to create support for your ideas if you're going to get them implemented. Turns out, the easiest way to do that is to talk to people about it. Go figure.

So as you can see, nothing mind-blowing. Interesting in some respect. A quick read. Well worth the $1 I paid for it. Not worth the $19.99 that it originally listed for.

A Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin

"When you play the game of thrones, you win or you die."

Even though George R.R. Martin's A Game of Thrones is 800 pages long, it is easily the best book that I've read in the past year. Even though I haven't read too many great books in the last year, that list does include: All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque, Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut, Murder on the Orient Express and The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agathe Christie, Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card, and The Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli.

Martin's style (constantly shifting viewpoints between characters) helps to create believable, fallible characters. I usually don't like when the viewpoint shifts so much, but Martin uses it in such a masterful way that I didn't mind. Specifically, since there is no "central" character, their is no contract with the reader that the main character will succeed/escape in the end. In other words, anything can happen to any character at any time.

One of the most annoying things to Martin's readers is that the series isn't complete. I'm itching to get started on A Clash of Kings, which is the sequel, but I'm apprehensive. Martin has completed 4 of the 7 books that he intends for the series, but the last one, A Feast for Crows (Book 4), was published in 2005. Book 5 is being worked on, but has been 5 years in the making so far.

What's taking up his time? Could be the HBO series that is based on A Game of Thrones that is being cast and written, due to air in 2011, starring Sean Bean (who played Boromir in Peter Jackson's movie of Tolkien's The Fellowship of the Ring.

I have decided to take it slow, to hopefully give Martin a chance to complete his fifth book, but I'm sure my patience won't last too long. If you like Fantasy/SciFi, you have to read this book. Hell, if you like good books, you should read this book.

The Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli

Have you ever heard of the term "Machiavellian?" Most likely you have and it was used to describe somebody dispensing cruelty to achieve power. It's used quite pejoratively. But what exactly does it mean to be Machiavellian? Inquiring minds want to know. I wanted to know. So I picked up the piece of literature responsible for the creation of the term: Niccolo Machiavelli's Il Principe (or The Prince as it's know in English).

Merriam-webster.com defines Machiavellian as "suggesting the principles of conduct laid down by Machiavelli; specifically : marked by cunning, duplicity, or bad faith." So, why would I want to know about cunning, duplicity and bad faith? To guard against it, of course.

I've come to a point in my career where I can see office politics making and breaking peoples careers within my company. Truthfully, I hate office politics. OK - I hate all politics. Since I have such a dislike of the subject, I have not spent much time learning about it. Yet I now have a family that relies solely on me to be the bread-winner. I need to make sure that I can continue to win bread. Thus, I set out to read Machiavelli's book.

Surprisingly, I enjoyed it. I honestly thought that it would tell me that to get ahead in this world, I would need to lie, cheat, and steal. I'm not down with that. Granted, there are passages in the text that blatantly tell you things like "Men ought to be well treated or crushed, because they can avenge themselves of lighter injuries, of more serious ones, they cannot." However, you begin to realize that a lot of the advice is based on how a "prince" achieved power: By one's own arms and achievements, by the arms or good fortunes of others, or by wickedness.

Thus I realized that wickedness is not the only path to power. In fact, Machiavelli states: "Those who by valorous ways become Princes . . . acquire a principality with difficulty, but keep it with ease." I think that I like that approach better. There is a lot of wisdom in this book, however, to examine it all would mean to write a book longer than Machiavelli's book itself. Pick it up. Give it a read - it's a short book.

For me, the book helped me to recognize political maneuvering when I see it. It has also helped me understand how to defend myself from the politically ambitious. I have not really decided if I truly want to achieve power within my organization. Right now, I'm happy just winning bread to provide for my family and hoping to get to a point where I can return home and be the father and husband I truly want to be.

One last interesting point: this book was written almost 500 years ago and it still rings with truth today.

Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card

One of the benefits I have received from not being an avid reader for much of my life is that it's very easy for me to find great books that I haven't read. My reading list has a lot of award winners on it and books that have already received their kudos. Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game is one of those highly touted books.

In the mid 1980's this book won a Hugo Award (best science fiction or fantasy book of the year - published in English) and a Nebula Award (best science fiction or fantasy book of the year - US). You know what? It deserved them.

Card gives us a simple story about a child (Ender Wiggin) who is being groomed to be humanity's greatest general - and their last hope. Through a training regimen of war games, Ender learns everything he needs to know about being a battle commander, but nothing about being a child or a friend. Does he have control over his own actions, or is the school pulling his strings like a puppet? You'll just have to read it to find out.

The writing style is simple to follow, which makes it a great book for young adults as well. It's a great tale with a good twist at the end. I'll definitely be adding a few more of Card's books to my reading list.

2500 pages down 7500 pages to go. I'm 3-days behind schedule.

All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque

I had a recent crisis of conscious when I realized that all those great books that I was supposed to read in high school - I didn't. A couple of you guys reading this blog (I'm talking to you, Jaime, Chuck and Wally) might remember Mrs. Herringer's junior year English class. All Quiet on the Western Front was one of the books that we were supposed to read.

I'll admit now (to the world) that I short-cutted the book by watching the movie, instead of reading the book. Years later, I've come to realize that I might have missed out on some great books, so I've decided to throw a few of them in as part of my 10,000 pages challenge.

All Quiet on the Western Front was a brilliant book. I don't think that I stand alone when I say that and its probably not news to anybody else. However, I would like to take a quote from the book because it very pertinent to me and my adventures overseas. Remarque wrote (from Paul Baumer's perspective):

". . . when you are on your own you start to look at nature, and to love it."

It's an obscure piece of wisdom that I've found to be completely true. In the weeks that I'm in Ireland by myself, I tend to spend my weekends in nature. It can get lonely over here, but when you see the majesty of nature you don't feel so alone. In fact, you quickly realize that you are not alone because God is with you - God who created the majesty.

Here's one of my favorite places thus far: Port Magee in County Kerry. Unfortunately it's over 4 hours drive away.



I've really come to love the rocky shorelines of the Emerald Isle. I'll miss them when I'm gone. 2150 pages and counting.

The Last Argument of Kings by Joe Abercrombie

A couple weeks ago I finished up the Joe Abercrombie First Law trilogy by completing The Last Argument of Kings.

I had to ponder whether or not I really liked this one or not. I thought on it for a long time and in the end I think it's near brilliant. Just as in the first two books, the characterization was fantastic. The difference with the concluding novel was that all was revealed about the characters and it wasn't always pretty. In fact, it was most often not pretty.

The novel left a bitter taste in my mouth. There were characters that I loved that I ended up hating. Other characters I loved ended up dying. I didn't have a good feeling about the book when I finished. However, after reflecting on it and allowing it to sink in, I did realize that it was well crafted and made one very strong statement.

Sometimes evil needs to be done for the benefit of the greater good.

There aren't many that have the stomach to do it. This book is about those who have the stomach to do unpopular things for what they believe is right. However, what they believe is right is only right in their own frame of reference. How many innocents have to suffer for what one man believes is right?

With the paralysis of modern bureaucracies, I have often wondered if a benign dictator might actually be a better option. This book made me realize that there is no such thing as benign dictatorships, only dictatorships. Benign/good, malicious/evil - it's all dependent upon whether you're on the the oppressor or the oppressed.

Who will history cast as hero and who will it cast as villain in our own, non-fantasy world? I don't know, but I'm sure that neither heroes nor villains will fully deserve the mantle that will be cast upon them.

With that said - another book down on my quest for 10,000 pages. 1900 pages as of mid-February.

Book Report: Before They Are Hanged by Joe Abercrombie

Time for another Book Report. If you remember, about a week ago, I did a little report on Joe Abercrombie's The Blade Itself. Today I'm reviewing the sequel to that book - the second in his First Law trilogy.

The Best Part: The characters are really starting to pop. There are two characters who are really starting to grow on me:

Superior Glokta - the victim of brutal torture now turning the tables and using his learned torture skills as an Inquisitor. At times, you get to see shreds of his humanity shining through. However, having been subject to such brutality as a prisoner of war has truly warped him.

Logen Ninefingers - A barbarian berzerker whose bloody past has given him true appreciation for the simple things in life, though he struggles to find himself useful in situations outside of battle.

The first book resonated the theme of the Yin and the Yang - there is good in evil and evil in good. This book focused more on themes of battle and war, for example the rich wage the wars, but the make poor fight the wars.

The Worst Part: I find it hard to find a worst part of this book. I really enjoyed it. I would advise, however, that if you don't like swearing or sex scenes in your reading, you might want to stay away from this book.

Rating: I give this book a ten out of ten. The characters are engrossing and the plot lines are better developed in the first book. This was the best fantasy book that I've read since Patrick Rothfuss' Name of the Wind. This is a good series to read if you like good fantasy, great characters and an intriguing plot.

Memorable Quote: "War is harshest on the brave."

Will I read the next book: Yes, already started.

10,000 Pages

About two years ago, I was driving home from work. I had recently joined a writer's group and had made a commitment to myself to start writing more. A story popped into my head. During my 1 hour commute, I was flushing out the details of the story and was ready to put it to word processor as soon as I got home.

I park the car, hop out, run downstairs to my computer and start typing. I spend about an hour working on one paragraph. I was getting frustrated. The vision was in my head, but the words were not coming to me. I reread what I had written - utter crap.

At this time in my life, I was lucky to read 1 book a year. If I spent time on the couch, I found myself more often watching the ample supply of re-runs on our TiVo DVR. I had an epiphany. If I wanted to learn to write properly, I needed to get up off my TV watching ass and sit down on my book-reading ass. I needed to learn how to write by reading good examples of writing (or even bad examples for that matter). I set forth a challenge to read 52 books in 1 year.

Quite a lofty goal, eh? Going from 1 book to 52 books. Still, I didn't want to cheat and read 52 children's books to get it done. So I stated that the average length of book I needed to read was 300 pages. Thus, I changed my goal from 52 books to 15,600 pages.

In 2008, I didn't hit that goal. I came up short. Though I would have hit the goal if I included all the audiobooks that I listened to. I ruled those out because I really don't retain much information from those. I read 33 books and just under 11,000 pages.

Now knowing what a realistic goal might be, I set my 2009 goal for 10,000 pages. I fell short again. I read only 27 books totaling about 8000 pages. Still quite remarkable considering that I was only 2 years removed from 300 pages a year. Granted, in 2009, I had a good reason for distraction - an infant son, but I make no excuses. I am happy with what I achieved.

So now it is 2010 and the challenge began for me again in January. I have just completed Joe Abercrombie's Before They Are Hanged which brings my yearly total to about 1300 pages. I estimate that reading 1 chapter a night can get me to 10,000 pages - though I don't always have the chance to read even that much.

If you're interested in reading more, join me in the challenge. Try to get to 10,000 pages - or set your own goal that is more realistic or challenging for you (maybe more, maybe less). No rules. Set a goal and go!

P.S. The image is of the library at Trinity College where the Book of Kells is kept.

Book Report: The Blade Itself by Joe Abercrombie

I figured that since I've taken on the challenge of reading more, I'd include some old-fashioned book reports (or reviews if you like) in the blog.

The Blade Itself is Joe Abercrombie's first book. It also happens to be the first book of his trilogy The First Law. I pulled the title from a general list of Top 25 Best Fantasy Books. The library happened to have the whole trilogy, so I decided to get busy reading it.

The Best Part: This book is all about characterization. Abercrombie does a fantastic job creating the characters of Logen, Glokta, and Jezal. These seem to be the primary characters, though there is quite a bit of character development amongst the secondary characters as well. Glokta is particularly well written. Abercrombie's style is very easy to read, making the book hard to put down once you pick it up.

The Worst Part: The book is not much more than a characterization. Though I haven't read the second or third book of the trilogy, I imagine that this is a good introduction to them. You get to know the characters and some minor events occur. However, you really don't know at the end of the story what the heroes are doing or why they are doing it. This book could not exist on its own.

Life's Lessons Learned: The book has a few themes that you can pick up pretty quickly. The most apparent is that the extremes of good and evil don't manifest themselves in one human being. Good people do bad things, bad people do good things. Most of the time good and evil are relative to your perspective.

Rating: Like one of the main characters in the story, I give this book a Bloody-Nine fingers out of ten. The book left me chomping at the bit to start the next book in the series: Before They Are Hanged. However, it left me a little unsatisfied because nothing really happened of import - other than introducing us to a brilliant fantasy world and a fun set of characters.