Early in elementary school I was not much of a reader. I could read fine, but wasn’t really motivated to read a lot on my own. That changed for me when the family moved [back] to Belgium and I started fifth grade with Ms. Pamay.
Wendy Pamay is one of my favorite teachers of all time. She introduced me to Shakespeare as our class worked on “The Scottish Play”. We sewed frogs. We sewed books. We even sewed frog books. But the thing I remember most about fifth grade was reading. Every week we would fill out a 3×5 card for each book that we had read–along with basic bibliographic information we would also write a few sentences giving a summary of the book. Also, to earn an “A” we were supposed to read 350 pages per week. At first it was hard for me, but by the second half of the school year I was exceeding and sometimes doubling that amount. I had become a reader.
Despite learning to love reading, I didn’t enjoy filling out the 3×5 cards and recording what I read. So once fifth grade ended, I continued being an avid reader, but typically didn’t keep track of what I read beyond my memory.
After I created Better by December I decided that along with tracking things like pushups and situps, that I would also track the books I read. And so, here are the 48 books which I read in 2023 (and the date I finished reading each book):
| 01/07/23 | The Priory of the Orange Tree |
| 01/12/23 | Jade City |
| 01/24/23 | Jade War |
| 02/02/23 | The Golden Apples of the Sun |
| 02/13/23 | Jade Legacy |
| 02/15/23 | The Reflection on Mount Vitaki |
| 02/19/23 | The Dream Thief |
| 02/20/23 | Clockwork Princess |
| 02/26/23 | The Perfect Perfume and Other Tales |
| 03/03/23 | Card Sharp Silver |
| 03/09/23 | Prohibition Orcs |
| 03/12/23 | Clockwork Heart |
| 04/01/23 | War of the Worlds: Global Dispatches |
| 04/08/23 | Shadow Warrior: The CIA Hero of a Hundred Unknown Battles |
| 04/13/23 | Steampunks and Other Heavy Hitters |
| 04/15/23 | Fiction River Presents: Sorcery & Steam |
| 05/29/23 | A Kamigata Anthology: Literature from Japan’s Metropolitan Centers, 1600–1750 |
| 06/03/23 | The Frugal Wizard’s Handbook for Surviving Medieval England (Secret Projects 2) |
| 06/08/23 | Tress of the Emerald Sea: A Cosmere Novel (Secret Projects 1) |
| 06/19/23 | The Dark Forest |
| 06/21/23 | Milky Way Railroad |
| 06/28/23 | A Shameful Life |
| 07/01/23 | Doomsday Match (The Dresden Codex Book 1) |
| 07/04/23 | Yumi and the Nightmare Painter: A Cosmere Novel (Secret Projects Book 3) |
| 07/21/23 | Death’s End |
| 07/24/23 | The Funny Business |
| 07/27/23 | Skeleton in the Closet: A Dragon Business Adventure |
| 07/30/23 | Eat, Drink, and Be Wary: Satisfying Stories with a Delicious Twist |
| 08/04/23 | The Nyte Patrol: Book One |
| 08/06/23 | Lover’s Moon (Canadian Werewolf Book 5) |
| 08/10/23 | Superhero Portal : An Action-Packed Superhero Origin Story (Dice Ford, Superhero Book 1) |
| 08/12/23 | Fat Vampire |
| 08/19/23 | The Magic Touch |
| 08/21/23 | Behold the Ape |
| 08/24/23 | The Hole |
| 08/25/23 | Tales from the Wood: A Modern Fairytale |
| 08/28/23 | Myths and Magic: A Humorous Fantasy Adventure (The Faerie King Trilogy) |
| 09/04/23 | A Cat’s Guide to Bonding with Dragons: A Humorous Fantasy Adventure (Dragoncat Book 1) |
| 09/04/23 | Deadlands: A Novel |
| 09/09/23 | A Good Running Away (Misplaced Mercenaries Book 1) |
| 09/13/23 | Just Another Day in Suburbia |
| 09/14/23 | Nowhere Man |
| 09/20/23 | Gardens of the Moon: Book One of The Malazan Book of the Fallen |
| 10/07/23 | Deadhouse Gates: Book Two of The Malazan Book of the Fallen |
| 10/22/23 | Memories of Ice: Book Three of The Malazan Book of the Fallen |
| 11/11/23 | D Day: June 6, 1944: The Climactic Battle of World War II |
| 12/02/23 | House of Chains: Book Four of The Malazan Book of the Fallen |
| 12/18/23 | Midnight Tides – A Tale of the Malazan Book of the Fallen |
I don’t have a goal to read any particular number of books. Some books I read have under 200 pages while several had over 1000 pages so I don’t consider the number of books to be too significant. Similarly, I do not track the number of pages since the amount and difficulty of content per page varies significantly between books.
Without recording things on betterbydecember.com, I probably would have guessed I’d read about 30 books over the course of the year, but now, as I did in fifth grade, I’m tracking each book I read. Reading is awesome and I am a reader. Thank you, Ms. Pamay.