Author: Shelby Foote
Progress:
- Volume 1: Finished! (281 pages)
- Volume 2: Finished! (281 pages)
- Volume 3: Finished! (281 pages)
- Volume 4: Finished! (279 pages and the end of Volume 1 of original publication)
- Volume 5: Finished! (297 pages)
- Volume 6: Finished! (281 pages)
- Volume 7: Finished! (313 pages)
- Volume 8: Finished! (281 pages)
- Volume 9: Page 6 of 217
- Volume 10:
- Volume 11:
- Volume 12:
- Volume 13:
- Volume 14:
May 15, 2012: I can’t believe it, I’ve actually reached the halfway point! And it’s only taken me three-and-half-months to read half of “one” book! Woohoo! Can you see the sarcasm oozing out between the pixels on your screen?
May 4, 2012: Turns out they were able to extend my checkout for the books, but only until the end of May, and finishing this series before then just isn’t happening. So, I took them all back except for Volumes 7 and 8, and I will re-request them one at a time when I am ready. If this keeps up, someday I may actually finish this “book.”
April 21, 2012: Volumes 7-14 were due back at the library today. After pleading with the librarian it appears that a second extension may be possible. I have an auto-extension of one week while my library calls all the other libraries from which these books are borrowed to see if my checkout period can be extended.
If they can’t, I’m right back to returning these books without reading them, because this week and next are finals weeks at school, and I’m busy beyond all reason.
If they can, I’m about to engage in probably the busiest reading in the whole project after school lets out because the books will be due back in one month, and I still have 8 volumes to read.
Wish me luck.
April 14, 2012: I’m not going to make it. I knew it was a tall order in hoping to finish the series before the now-extended library due date of April 21st, but now I’m just hoping to reach the halfway point by finishing Volume 7 before they go back.
It is a bit of a disappointment to think about breaking this series into two readings, but I think it is the only way for me to finish them without actually owning the books myself. I do have a business trip coming up, which will give me a good surge of reading time on the plane and hotel, which I have working in my favor.
At this point I’ll plan to continue what remains of these books later in the project. I will insert another “War” entry somewhere in my randomized list, and when I reach it I will finish the rest of this series.
March 18, 2012: This particular book (see also: set of books) will be the end of me. I have been reading as much as I possibly can throughout these past few weeks, and while I have now made it a third of the way through, finishing book four just moments ago, the thought of needing to quickly read the remaining 10 books pains me.
These books were not meant to be read quickly, they were intended to be read very slowly, while taking notes and studying maps. A person could spend a full year of their life reading and studying these volumes. While I have no plans to take such time, I still plan to read every word Mr. Foote felt worthy of typing.
And so I will continue to trudge on, as there is much interesting material to be discovered inside the pages of these thorough books.
March 13, 2012: The gang’s all here!
February 28, 2012: I’m not thrilled with the downtime waiting for Volume 3 to arrive. I’ve made the decision to order ALL the volumes now so this doesn’t happen again. However, this forces me into an interesting predicament. The library only allows two renewals for checked out books, so, once they are all here, I will have 3 months to read all of them. Lucky for me, spring break is in that window. Time to up to the ante!
February 18, 2012: Looks like I should be able to get the rest of the 40th Anniversary Editions, as I can pull from my entire state’s libraries. And so, the rest of the progress list:
The Great Development of February 17th, 2012: After requesting Volume 3, I have made a grim discovery.
I’ve discovered I assume too much sometimes. I’d noticed the older editions of these books are about 1000 pages each. However since I am reading the Time Life 40th Anniversary Editions, I made the assumption that these editions must have much larger pages than the older ones, as the previous 1000 pages in each volume looks to have shrunk to around 300. That, however, was a faulty assumption – and would have gotten me killed if planning was a battlefield. This mistake was made to look worse considering the amount of pictures and maps in these 40th Anniverary editions. As it turns out, the 40th Anniverary Edition spans FOURTEEN volumes, each around 300 pages - for a total of roughly 4,200 pages.
Now plainly obvious, this particular read is going to take me a lot longer than 2 weeks. My overall project is going to be set back tremendously on only the second “book” in the list. Perhaps I should have done a bit more research into this beforehand to see if many of the books in Time Magazine’s list are multiple volumes. So, just like they thought the Civil War would be over in a few weeks and ended up lasting years, I too made the same mistake thinking I could knock out this set of books within a month. I am in for a long battle….
Nevertheless, I still plan to go through with this proje–I mean, war. Although, I am still waiting to see if my library can get all 14 volumes of the 40th Anniverary edition, or if I am going to have to switch over to a previous edition.
