Posted by Russell Barnes on 02/21/00 from 196.2.39.5 via proxy proxy.dbn.mweb.co.za:
No despatches for two days? Everyone's gone very silent suddenly! Better get Nancy to stir things up . . .
I just thought I'd share something that might be of some use to somebody. Over the years I never grew out of reading the SA books - like all good AR fans, of course - and sometime in the early nineties my curiosity as to how often I was reading the books overtook me. Accordingly I resorted to the simple technique of writing on a blank page at the back of the relevant book, and occasionally in the front in a war-time economy edition, "Russell Barnes read this book in:". That was my heading and underneath I would write the month and year.
And so I now find that since 1990 my statistics of "book read in month/year" read: SA - Aug 1995; SD - Jan 1994, July 1995; PD - May 1992, May 1994, Nov 1994, Feb 1997; WH - May 1995; CC - Nov 1997; PP - June 1993, June 1995, June 1999, August 1999!; WDMTGTS - Sept 1997; SW - Dec 1992, ? 1997; BS - Dec 1997; ML - April 1995, March 1999; PM - Sept 1993, April 1995, October 1999; GN - May 1990, July 1996.
Over the years I've been meaning to make some examination of the above as the "material" grew, and so after ten years now this discussion will afford some small conclusions:-
1) I like all the books equally, really, with only a little less enthusiasm for SW and GN, and so the above is not in fact meant to prove anything.
2) I generally try and read them all equally, singling out one of the books that I haven't seen for a long time, rather than continually to reread just a few books.
3) I must, however, say that my favourites are definitely PD, PP, WDMTGTS, ML and PM! As to the best, I'd have to single out one of PP, WDMTGTS or ML . . .
4) I do (only) occasionally forget to enter the date once I've finished reading, and this would probably explain the inconceivable situation that I read CC, BS or WDMTGTS only once in ten years or why I seem to have read nothing from May 1990 to May 1992. It's more like every four to five years for the average.
5) As an experiment I read just the lake books on the trot in 1995, and now - after six months which included spending spare time repairing the roof of our house (lots of rain in Natal, South Africa, at present) - I'm just itching to pick up a Ransome once again. This time I think it'll be SD (last time = July 1995).
6) The fact that I have more "readings" in the first half of the decade has, I'm sure, more than just something to do with establishing my own business in 1996!
7) A final observation is that this method also serves to remind you with a shock how quickly the years are passing! You tend to look back at one book and think: "Is it really four years since I last read it? Why, I distinctly remember . . ." For instance, I'm utterly convinced that I read GN only two years ago, not way back in 1996!