1,000

This is what my first 1,000 days of Daily Devotional Readings (about 20 minutes per day) looks like. By my count (it's not as easy as you'd think, since there are several variables to consider) I've read 13,449 pages in my first 1,000 DDR days...for an average of about 13 1/2 pages per day. 

Just for the record, that's

A History of Philosophy by Frederick Copleston, Volumes I - XI

History of Civilization in England by Henry Thomas Buckle, Volumes I - III

Miscellaneous and Posthumous Works of Henry Thomas Buckle Volumes I - III

Civilization and Capitalism, 16th - 18th Century by Fernand Braudel, Volumes I - III

The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II by Fernand Braudel, Volumes I - III

This Happened In My Presence: Moriscos, Old Christians, and the Spanish Inquisition in the Town of Deza, 1569-1611, edited by Patrick J. O'Banion

The Stolen Village: Baltimore and the Barbary Pirates by Des Ekin

Peat and Peat Cutting by Ian D. Rotherham

I'd have to say that the best read of the first 1,000 days was Buckle's History of Civilization in England. I would actually like to read that one (and by one, I mean three) again someday. If I live long enough. 

The books I would not recommend to anybody else would be The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II by Fernand Braudel and The Stolen Village: Baltimore and the Barbary Pirates by Des Ekin. I'm not sorry to have read them myself, but I don't think the payoff warrants recommendation. There is better Braudel...and Ekin is a shitty writer. And after all, there are so many other great books to read.

My initial goal was to read 15 minutes per day. Somewhere along the line in A History of Philosophy that shifted to 10 pages a day, since the 15 minutes was only getting me through about 7 pages per diem, and I like to avoid math whenever possible. And somewhere else along the line it shifted to 20 pages a day, then shifted back to 10-ish. Then it pinged around a little. But 10 pages a day seems like a reasonable goal--unless the book is particularly dense...or particularly rare.* It usually amount to 20 minutes or less per day. 

The thing is that you do it every day. So that meager 10 pages a day becomes 70 pages a week, which becomes 300 (-ish) pages a month, 3,650 pages a year. 

I'm pretty happy about how it worked out. 

And now I'm ready for my second millennium.

* dictionary.com says:

thinly distributed over an area; few and widely separated

having the component parts not closely compacted together; not dense