"Read a Lot, Forget Most of What You Read, and Be Slow-witted". --Montaigne

 Books Read 2019

If you're a runner, I suppose finishing a marathon is an ultimate goal.  You collect a runner's high and hold a badge of honor.  For reading, my goal for 2019  was to read 100 books.  Yesterday I finished the year with 102. If you're raised in the midwest, you're not supposed to brag but I will share this with Goodreads since the site is about sharing our reading experiences. And like a runner, there were times on the journey when I was exhausted but there were probably more moments of experiencing a reader's high. What did I learn?  It pushes you to read outside your normal area of interest but don't be too structured about what you plan to read.  Be open and go with the flow of your current interest. 

Here are some stats on types of books read:
 

Travel/Place - 14
History - 14
Non-fiction 11
Novels - 9
WWII - 7
Digital World - 8
Art - 5
Biography -5
Poetry - 5
Memoir - 5
Photography - 4
Language - 3
Sci-Fi- 3
Philosophy -2
Civil War - 2
Professional - 2
Essay - 1
Children's - 1

Hard to pick but my top ten books, in no particular order:

1.  Divine Proportion: Phi In Art, Nature, and Science, Priya Hemenway and Amy Ray
2. Colossus of New York, Colin Whitehead
3. Spearhead: An American Tank Gunner, His Enemy, and a Collision of Lives In World War II, Adam Makos
4.  Honorable Exit: How a Few Brave Americans Risked All to Save Our Vietnamese Allies at the End of the War
by Thurston Clarke
5. Overstory, Richard Powers
6. The Sitwells, John George Pearson
7. Gutenberg to Google, Tom Wheeler
8. The Snow Leopard, Peter Mattheissen
9. Contemporary American Painting, Encyclopedia Britannica
10. Abandonings: Photographs of Otter Tail County, MN, Maxwell MacKenzie

Some miscellaneous notes:
--Read two books with the same title: Spain
--Good to read a children's book once in a while for perspective: the one I read was about making crayons
--Did not read more than two books by the same author
--Read a book about the first of the American Revolution and a second about the last year
--unconsciously read several books on themes of nature (Overstory, Sand County Alamanac, Snow Leopard, Divine Proportion ) that make me appreciate nature more.  
--read several books on early voyages to America (Voyage Long and Strange, Undreamed Shores, Secret Voyage of Sir Francis Drake)

Will I do this for 2020?  Probably not but I'm glad I did it as a personal goal.