The man who read 3599 books

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Dan Pelzer, who died on July 1 at age 92, is having a viral moment after his relatives shared his 109-page log featuring every single book he finished over more than 60 years

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/this-man-kept-a-meticulous-list-of-all-3599-books-hed-read-since-1962-when-he-died-his-family-published-it-online-180987074/

https://what-dan-read.com/

StanM, Saturday, 2 August 2025 05:54 (three months ago)

NYT did one of their fancy scrolling image articles on it.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/26/books/man-died-book-list-thousands.html

I like it, it's interesting. It does make you feel like you know part of who he is. There's going to be a lot more of these lists in the age of letterboxd and similar sites.

adamt (abanana), Saturday, 2 August 2025 07:12 (three months ago)

I thought it was a Fall track at first

assert (matttkkkk), Saturday, 2 August 2025 09:18 (three months ago)

As they used to say in the 1960s, you are what you eat. ;-)

If I'd started at about age 16, my lifetime list would probably top out at about half that number. I'm rather glad I only started keeping a similar list in my mid-50s so I could contribute to the What Did You Read in... (the past year) threads here on ILB. This way there's less incriminating evidence.

more difficult than I look (Aimless), Saturday, 9 August 2025 22:22 (three months ago)

I love that Dan hated Ulysses.

StanM, Sunday, 10 August 2025 05:41 (three months ago)

Let’s poll all 3599

Black Sabaoth (Boring, Maryland), Sunday, 10 August 2025 13:06 (three months ago)

NYT did one of their fancy scrolling image articles on it.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/26/books/man-died-book-list-thousands.html

I like it, it's interesting. It does make you feel like you know part of who he is. There's going to be a lot more of these lists in the age of letterboxd and similar sites.

― adamt (abanana), Saturday, August 2, 2025 8:12 AM (one week ago) bookmarkflaglink

not 60 year lists.

five six seven, eight nine ten, begin (map), Sunday, 10 August 2025 19:15 (three months ago)

but what's on his ipod?

sleeve, Sunday, 10 August 2025 19:25 (three months ago)

the nyt article observes that he was into reading classics in 1999. looks like a lot of the books he read that year were on the modern library 100 greatest novels of the 20th century list that was published in 1998.

jaymc, Sunday, 10 August 2025 20:13 (three months ago)

Art Garfunkel's website features a list of well over a thousand titles he's read, most recently (as of 2023) E.M. Forster's Where Angels Fear to Tread. I note that he was reading Norman Mailer's book on Marilyn Monroe a few weeks after his girlfriend's suicide.

Halfway there but for you, Wednesday, 13 August 2025 15:21 (three months ago)

and he is no closer to understanding why Paul Simon loathes him

hungover beet poo (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 13 August 2025 15:24 (three months ago)

He's trying, he read the Hilburn biography!

Halfway there but for you, Wednesday, 13 August 2025 16:28 (three months ago)


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