A Year of Reading

As the year closes, I look back on what I've been able to accomplish this year. There's a lot I can point to, but one of the things I am most proud of (I know, beware of pride) is how much I've been able to read, mostly, a few pages at a time.

First of all, I read the Book of Mormon 3.75 times. Once with Sunday School, once and about a third with my family, and once and about a third by myself. I also read the Old Testament through, and Genesis, Exodus and part of Leviticus again. I read the entire New Testament, plus Matthew, Mark and most of Luke again. I read the entire Doctrine & Covenants twice, plus up to section 13. I read the Pearl of Great Price twice. These I alternated between, but otherwise read one chapter per book per day, with the exception that I read 4 pages of the Old Testament per day. That's less than a half hour of reading most days. Surely, 'by small and simple things are great things brought to pass.' And, at a rate of four chapters a month, I read the entire Priesthood/Relief Society Manual of the Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith (so I'm ahead for next year). These books together added to 5,176 pages.

That would be quite an accomplishment all by itself, and I'm quite pleased with how it turned out. But that's not the end of the story. I also set a goal to read 24 more books, aside from the scriptures over the course of the year. I thought I could accomplish a goal of reading two books per month. Well, thanks in part to books on cd/mp3 which I borrowed from the library (thanks libraries!) I exceeded that goal, reading 37 books, totaling 10,745 pages. That's an average book length of 290 pages (lest anyone say, '37 books, I can read that in an afternoon' about childrens' books). For the record, 21 of those books were on mp3, so I was able to read while driving, walking, etc.

For those keeping track, that's 15,921 pages total.