mental_floss magazine
SUBSCRIBE >
GIFT SUBSCRIPTIONS >
DIGITAL SUBSCRIPTIONS >
subscriber services >
Every now and then I stumble upon something online that just blows me away. Usually I share it with you all, like over the summer when I heard about the blind interior designer who got his own reality TV show.
(Just curious: did anyone ever watch an episode? Was it as sad and awful as it sounded?)
Anyway, today I happened upon something ever so slightly more elevated, but just as mind-blowing. On Art Garfukel’s website, one can browse the titles of EVERY book he’s read since – strapped in? – JUNE OF 1968!!!! You simply have to see this to believe it.
I was fascinated to learn, for instance, that in 1969 alone, Art read over 20 books, including Philip Roth’s Goodbye, Columbus and Portnoy’s Complaint, Malamud’s The Assistant, Jospeh Heller’s Catch 22, Voltaire’s Candide, Tolstoy’s War and Peace, Shakespeare’s Hamlet, and Brontë’s Wuthering Heights. And that’s just the beginning of ’69! And don’t forget that 1969 was a year the famous duo was on tour in the wake of the success of “The Sound of Silence.”
I guess what boggles the mind is not only that he had so much down time to consume books of some heft, but that he kept track! Who remembers what I read 30 years ago?! (Okay, Pat the Bunny, but still…)
For more fun, check out Art’s “Favorite Books,” too!
Comments (14)
Comment
What’s fascinating about this list is that he largely ignores most of the recent bestsellers from each year and seems to prefer the classics. In most years he reads only about one besseller.
posted by Dan on 1-18-2007 at 8:55 am
I found this a while back during a Simon & Garfunkel fan binge. I commend his bibliomania. The guy attended Columbia and read voraciously, but what always surprised me was the fact that Paul Simon wrote much of the lyrics.. You’d think Art would be more literary?
posted by Sabrina on 1-18-2007 at 10:04 am
Art should check out LibraryThing.com and you should too.
posted by Andrea on 1-18-2007 at 10:15 am
Wow… just wow. I’m trying to see 365 movies this year (I’m already 8 behind my one-a-day goal), but this is much more stunning. 38 years, and nearly a thousand books… (calculates) 25 books a year! That’s actually quite cool, in a nerdy kind of way.
I found it odd that the first book of 2001 he seems to have read was “Mein Kampf,” especially since he’s apparently Jewish, but I guess he’s not exactly judgmental about what books he reads.
posted by Sillstaw on 1-18-2007 at 1:18 pm
Yeah, it’s pretty amazing Sillstaw. Though I’m not sure why being Jewish would prevent someone from reading Hitler’s biography. On the contrary, no?
posted by David on 1-18-2007 at 4:52 pm
Just to let you know that I actually watched two episodes of the blind interior decorator. In both cases, which is why I watched the second one, the redo turned out really lovely. The clients seemed genuninely thrilled.
posted by Jill on 1-18-2007 at 6:58 pm
In 1988 I read an article that said that the average U.S. citizen read 1,000 books in their lifetime. I sat and thought, “I’ve read more than that.”
Since then I have kept track of all the books I have read since 1988. I have a list of books that I know I’ve read before 1988, but it is not 100% complete (I estimate it to be 60%).
In all I’ve read almost 4000 (my goal is 10,000 books before I die).
I also try and read 1 short story and 1 poem each day.
posted by Rich G. on 1-19-2007 at 7:31 am
Big deal! I’ve been doing the same thing is August of 1985 and my books per year average (31.6) is greater than Art’s (25.7) and I have to work for a living. I think that there are probably plenty of people out there that keep such a list and that read way more than I do. Why is it that just because someone is a celebrity that what they do or say gets treated so frequently as if it is soooo original and imaginative (and by a publication such as Mental Floss no less!)? Nothing against Artie. I think that he is fantastic in concert and I have bookmarked his website to consult his reading sellections for material. - pjp
posted by Peter J. Petrunich on 1-19-2007 at 4:24 pm
What is #949?
posted by Peter Petrunich on 1-19-2007 at 6:19 pm
David: Yeah, I guess you’re right. I guess the real question is how he got through it; from what I’ve heard, it’s a rambling, pointless read.
posted by Sillstaw on 1-21-2007 at 8:51 pm
I guess the point about Garfunkel was worth mentioning because he’s famous. However, 28 is not a large number of books to read in a year—it is just a little more than two a month, which scarcely qualifies one as a voracious reader.
posted by George Nathan on 1-24-2007 at 7:41 am
25 books average each year? I’m not that impressed. I realize he’s busy, but I can easily read 35 to 40 books a year (and in 1968 through about the 1980’s I was reading 1 or 2 books a week).
I am impressed by his literary discrimination. And his thoroughness in documenting the books he’s read!
posted by Ann Daley on 1-24-2007 at 8:32 am
I love Art Garfunkel. I also love to reaad and love meeting other people who read. My questions is, why do we have to have a competition about who reads more and argue the definition of a “voracious reader”? I never write down what I’ve read. It’s great that people do. What a fun list to go back and look at! But let’s just enjoy the fact that there are other similar minded people out there, famous or not, who delight in the written word.
posted by Sarah on 1-24-2007 at 2:16 pm
Did he ever forget to pay the library for any late fees that he might have accumilated?
posted by Sara on 1-27-2007 at 5:48 pm