I have been reading a lot this year (so far), having completed 36 books and read over 10,000 pages in just the first three months.  In my best year (2011) since starting tracking my reading in detail, I read 21,601 pages so I am well on-track to shattering that record.  Will I beat 2010’s total of 119 books finished?  Only time will tell…

The February pages read total of 2726 is down almost a thousand from January but the March stat of 3699 is back up there.  What’s particularly amazing is that the bulk of my reading for this past month occurred in the first twelve days; once I purchased my new laptop (having been without for almost a year), my daily reading took a significant drop.

I managed to finish 10 books in February and 11 in March.  Considering that in 2012 the most I finished in a single month was eight, I think I’m doing pretty good.  I hope I can maintain my goal of at least ten books a month throughout the entire year.

As usual, the subject matter of the books I’m reading is all over the place.  The majority remain firmly entrenched in the mystery and adventure novel genres but there’s been a fair amount of history as well.  Most of the history books remain unfinished but I flew through one about America’s Mississippi River, an excellent read that left me craving much more.  I’ve read a few novels lately that have been set in Thailand.  You can find many “expat novels” set in the bars of Bangkok; these rarely deal with any Thai culture and feature the same drunken farang I prefer to avoid in real life.  But Timothy Hallinan’s Poke Rafferty series is a cut above the rest and I’m looking forward to reading another in the near future.

Sometimes the fiction leads to a desire to find out more about the background matter.  For example, after reading numerous books in which the Knights Templar feature in some form or another I have finally picked up a straight history detailing these “soldiers of Christ” and a novel that mentioned archaeological excavations of Coptic sites in Egypt has caused me to delve into the early history of Christianity.  I’ll report on those books when I finish them.

BOOKS FINISHED – FEBURARY 2014

1. Wicked River: The Mississippi When It Last Ran Wild by Lee Sandlin (2010)
2. The Fourth Watcher by Timothy Hallinan (2008)
3. The Mayan Secrets by Clive Cussler (2013)
4. Tracker by James Rollins (2012)
5. Three To Get Deadly by Janet Evanovich (1997)
6. Breathing Water by Timothy Hallinan (2009)
7. The Panther by Nelson De Mille (2012)
8. The Queen Of Patpong by Timothy Hallinan (2010)
9. Faking It In Bangkok: Crime And Culture In The Digital Age by Christopher G. Moore (2012)
10. The People Of Sparks by Jeanne DuPrau (2004)

BOOKS FINISHED – MARCH 2014

1. Maphead: Charting The Wide Weird World Of Geography Wonks by Ken Jennings (2011)
2. The Templar Legacy by Steve Berry (2006)
3. Beginning Ubuntu Linux: From Novice To Professional by Keir Thomas (2006)
4. Fear And Loathing In Bangkok by Christopher G. Moore (2014)
5. Ubuntu: An Absolute Beginner’s Guide by Courtney Loo (2012)
6. Instant Ubuntu: Your Complete Guide To Making The Switch To Ubuntu by Christer Edwards (2013)
7. The Super Summary Of World History by Alan Dale Daniel (2010)
8. The Alexander Cipher by Will Adams (2007)
9. Ubuntu Made Easy: A Project-Based Introduction To Linux by Rickford Grant and Phil Bull (2012)
10. Four To Score by Janet Evanovich (1998)
11. The Exodus Quest by Will Adams (2008)