Now that’s what I call reading...

If asked about my hobbies, I will reply that I love reading; am an ‘avid’ reader in fact. I read 30, 40, sometimes 50 books a year and have been doing so since about the age of 10. Hence I may have read about 2000 books in my life, and should I live another twenty years, which is doubtful though not impossible, I may have read 3000, which I consider an excellent figure. It does not really qualify me as ‘well read’ in the classical meaning of that term, but it isn’t bad.

William Ewart Gladstone, the celebrated Victorian liberal politician who served 4 terms as Prime Minister, also described himself as an ‘avid’ reader, though with somewhat greater justification. In his life (he lived to the great age, at that time, of 89) he read over 22,000 books; that represents about 1 book a day throughout his adult life. And he didn’t just skip-read either. He kept most of the books he read, which are now collected into an impressive library, and they are filled with annotations which show he was reading every word, and paying close attention. Considering how busy he must have been (he served a near record 12 years as PM,  held several cabinet minister posts and spent several decades as an MP), and also considering he had only candlelight to assist him in the night hours, it has to be an astonishing achievement.

I met a bloke once who was a member of a book-crossing club who reckoned he read 8 books a week. I wasn’t sure if I could believe him, though maybe I am being unfair. He is only half my age, in which case he must have surpassed my score years ago. Whether he will reach the prodigious proportions of Gladstone only time will tell. But how much does he (or did Gladstone, for that matter) retain of the books he reads? An Italian literature professor has said that if you have read a book but can remember nothing about it, then to all practical purposes you haven’t read it at all. Now that’s going to bring your score down a bit, I would have thought. But Gladstone sounds like he could have written a lengthy review of pretty much every book he ever read. Which is why in the realm of intellectual achievement. I would place his very high indeed. Keep reading guys...