{"id":789,"date":"2024-06-18T01:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-06-18T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/timothypatrickbrown.com\/?p=789"},"modified":"2024-06-13T02:02:01","modified_gmt":"2024-06-13T01:02:01","slug":"every-book-ive-ever-read","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/timothypatrickbrown.com\/index.php\/2024\/06\/18\/every-book-ive-ever-read\/","title":{"rendered":"Every Book I’ve Ever Read"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I\u2019ve been reading novels since I was about 10 years old. That\u2019s over forty years of reading. I\u2019ve recent recorded every book I\u2019ve ever read into GoodReads<\/a>. It was an exercise in memory, reflection and tatty notebooks. I haven\u2019t I\u2019ve quite got them all, but I think I\u2019m close.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

So this is my reading life so far; all the books I\u2019ve read and where I\u2019ve stashed them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

2009 to Present Day: A Small Green Notebook<\/strong><\/h1>\n\n\n
\n
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In 2009 I started to write a diary. I didn\u2019t stick with it, and it fizzled out after a year. Amidst all the writing about my job, my troubles and my dreams, I scribbled down the book I was reading at the time. Once I\u2019d abandoned the diary, I copied all those books into a small green notebook and kept it up to date. I\u2019m so glad I did. It\u2019s surprising how quickly I forget what I\u2019ve read, so a paper based memory auxiliary unit is essential.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From Oct 2014 I also started to record the date I finished them, and now the books have been transferred into GoodReads I can use that data to produce graphs of my reads<\/a>. The graphs weirdly cheer me up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

2005 to 2009: My Amazon Account<\/strong><\/h1>\n\n\n\n

For better or worse, a lot of the books I\u2019ve read have been bought from Amazon. I\u2019ve been buying there since 2005. While I feel a little queasy knowing that my love of books is funding Jeff Bezos\u2019s next rocket<\/a>, it\u2019s super convenient and most of the books I want are available, and as a happy side effect most of my past purchases are listed under my account.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Amazon nicely plugs the gap from when my green notebook ends, filling in the years from 2005 to 2009.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

1999 to 2005: My Bookshelf. <\/strong><\/h1>\n\n\n\n

Over the years I\u2019ve lost quite a few books. They just sprout wings and flutter off.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Before I came to Australia in 2017, we gave away about a third of all the books we owned. I regret that – they could have easily have fitted into the shipping container, but we were determined to be the new broom that sweeps clean. Another crate of books, that we did pack, never made it. I imagine it\u2019s still bobbing around the Indian Ocean. The books we now own are probably only half of what we once did.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nevertheless, a lot are still there, and many of the books that I loved from 1999 to 2005, shine down happily from my shelving, scattered around our Brisbane low-set (or bungalow if you are British).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

1993 to 1999: Wilderness Years<\/strong><\/h1>\n\n\n\n

I was a secondary school teacher during this time, and I was so stressed and exhausted that I couldn\u2019t concentrate on reading. There were years that I hardly read anything. I couldn\u2019t focus and my mind felt like it was full of angry bees.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Stephen King said a similar thing in On Writing<\/a>. When he was a school teacher, in the years before Carrie was published, he struggled to write after a full day\u2019s teaching. There is something deadly to the creative process in teaching. It\u2019s so all consuming that it squashes all other activities. It\u2019s a voracious monster of a job. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The few books that I did read are mostly still on my bookshelf, and when they\u2019ve been lost I generally know them. The infrequent tends to be memorable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

1990 – 1993: Science Fiction, The 100 Best Novels by David Pringle<\/strong><\/h1>\n\n\n
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Someone gave me a copy of Science Fiction, The 100 Best Novels<\/a> by David Pringle in my first year of university. He reviews 100 top class sci-fi books published between1949 to 1984 – starting from 1984 by George Orwell (which I love) and ending with Neuromancer by William Gibson (which I don\u2019t). I devoured David Pringle\u2019s book, reading it multiple times. I loved it.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A lot of the books I was reading at that time are in here. I particularly loved the older science fiction, and to this day I\u2019ve a huge affection for speculative fiction written in the 1950s and 1960s. I remain a big fan of Philip K Dick, Brian Aldiss, and Michael Moorcock.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

1982 – 1990: My Father\u2019s Bookshelf<\/strong><\/h1>\n\n\n\n

Most of the books I read as a teenager are still at my Dad\u2019s house in the UK. I was there over Christmas and I noted down all the books I\u2019d read, while popping a few of my favourites into my bag to take back to Australia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By the time I was fourteen, I was reading some of my dad\u2019s novels too. My love of Graham Greene, David Lodge, and Herman Hesse came from around this time. It\u2019s only now, that my dad and I are doing the mini-bookclub<\/a>, that I\u2019m back to reading older classic books. That feels good.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My Memory<\/strong><\/h1>\n\n\n\n

And yet there are still gaps, and I fall back to that most fallible of things – my memory. I like to browse second hand bookshops, or scroll through GoodRead lists and wait for the memory to be jogged, and it often obliges. There is something gratifying when a long forgotten read, coalesces into my consciousness. It\u2019s so strange that many hours can be spent reading a book, only for it to fade away; almost as if it never happened.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But I have remembered, and now I know that I\u2019ve read \u2026.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One Thousand Books<\/strong><\/h1>\n\n\n
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\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

It\u2019s a life of reading, enshrined into Goodreads, sourced from a disparate array of memories, internet accounts and notebooks. As of writing this post, I’ve read 1153 books, in over 40 years of book consumption. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

And if I can make it to 90, that will be another one thousand books to look forward to.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019ve been reading novels since I was about 10 years old. That\u2019s over forty years of reading. I\u2019ve recent recorded every book I\u2019ve ever read into GoodReads. It was an exercise in memory, reflection and tatty notebooks. I haven\u2019t I\u2019ve quite got them all, but I think I\u2019m close.   So this is my reading […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":798,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ocean_post_layout":"","ocean_both_sidebars_style":"","ocean_both_sidebars_content_width":0,"ocean_both_sidebars_sidebars_width":0,"ocean_sidebar":"","ocean_second_sidebar":"","ocean_disable_margins":"enable","ocean_add_body_class":"","ocean_shortcode_before_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_after_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_before_header":"","ocean_shortcode_after_header":"","ocean_has_shortcode":"","ocean_shortcode_after_title":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_bottom":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_bottom":"","ocean_display_top_bar":"default","ocean_display_header":"default","ocean_header_style":"","ocean_center_header_left_menu":"","ocean_custom_header_template":"","ocean_custom_logo":0,"ocean_custom_retina_logo":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_height":0,"ocean_header_custom_menu":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_family":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_subset":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_size":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_unit":"px","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_line_height":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_unit":"","ocean_menu_typo_spacing":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_unit":"","ocean_menu_link_color":"","ocean_menu_link_color_hover":"","ocean_menu_link_color_active":"","ocean_menu_link_background":"","ocean_menu_link_hover_background":"","ocean_menu_link_active_background":"","ocean_menu_social_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_links_color":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_color":"","ocean_disable_title":"default","ocean_disable_heading":"default","ocean_post_title":"","ocean_post_subheading":"","ocean_post_title_style":"","ocean_post_title_background_color":"","ocean_post_title_background":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_image_position":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_attachment":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_repeat":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_size":"","ocean_post_title_height":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay":0.5,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay_color":"","ocean_disable_breadcrumbs":"default","ocean_breadcrumbs_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_separator_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_hover_color":"","ocean_display_footer_widgets":"default","ocean_display_footer_bottom":"default","ocean_custom_footer_template":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"ocean_post_oembed":"","ocean_post_self_hosted_media":"","ocean_post_video_embed":"","ocean_link_format":"","ocean_link_format_target":"self","ocean_quote_format":"","ocean_quote_format_link":"post","ocean_gallery_link_images":"on","ocean_gallery_id":[],"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[17,18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-789","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-books","category-personal","entry","has-media"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/timothypatrickbrown.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/book-notes-1.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/timothypatrickbrown.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/789","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/timothypatrickbrown.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/timothypatrickbrown.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timothypatrickbrown.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timothypatrickbrown.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=789"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/timothypatrickbrown.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/789\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":846,"href":"https:\/\/timothypatrickbrown.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/789\/revisions\/846"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timothypatrickbrown.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/798"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/timothypatrickbrown.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/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