My LINKcat AccountThe Summer Reading Program has ended. The celebratory party has occurred. There is nothing left to do but to give you all the fascinating numbers. This year 600 participants read, earned a badge, and /or attended an event. Those participants read 33,132 books. Whew! That’s a whole lot of reading!
Every year, for more years than I care to remember, I have been reporting the number of pages read in concrete terms. I have converted the number of pages read (or pages listened to, or time spent reading) into inches, then converted those inches into miles, and then plotted that number of miles on a map. Since I have been doing this annually for enough years for this to have become a tradition, and since I’m wise enough not to tamper with a fine tradition, here goes!
Those 33,132 books read by those 600 people convert to 2,694,359 pages (using our traditional conversion formula). That’s just 4,490 pages read by every participant!
Now, on to the calculations which begin with this question: “If you laid all the pages of the books that were read end-to-end how many miles would they stretch?” The average size of a page is 9 inches tall which gives us (2,694,359 times 9” or) 24,249,231 inches (always show your work if you want to receive full credit). Then we take those inches and divide by 12 to give us 2,020,769 feet and then divide by 5,280 to give us 383 miles (BTW, last year we only read 308 miles ). So 388 miles east of DeForest puts about 5 miles west of Lima, Ohio. Going almost due south, you’d be somewhere south of St. Louis and somewhere north of Festus, MO. And if you headed west, you’d be somewhere between Adair and Avoca, Iowa. No matter how you look at it, that’s a lot of pages read. If you want to add to keep in shape for the soon-to-be-upon-us Winter Reading Program, below you will find some of the new books which recently arrived at the library. Enjoy!
New Non-Fiction
“Out of the Darkness: The Mystery of Aaron Rodgers” by Ian O’Connor. Drawing on original interviews to answer the most penetrating questions about the league’s most enigmatic player, a New York Times best-selling author takes on four-time the NFL MVP, revealing all sides of an all-time great and delivering a portrait of a complex man that will forever shape the way he’s viewed.
“I Heard There Was a Secret Chord: Music As Medicine” by Daniel Levitin. A neuroscientist and New York Times best-selling author of This Is Your Brain on Music reveals the deep connections between music and healing.
“The Bookshop: A History of the American Bookstore” by Evan Friss. Drawing on oral histories, archival collections, municipal records, diaries, letters and interviews with leading booksellers, this ode to bookstores discusses its central place in American cultural life and offers a captivating look at this institution beloved by so many.
New Fiction
“A Darkness Returns, No.1 (The Dragonwar Saga)” by Raymond Feist. From a notable author comes the first installment in an epic new series that will join his acclaimed Firemane Saga with his signature Riftwar Cycle in a riveting, conclusive adventure.
“Hera” by Jennifer Saint. Betrayed by Zeus's ruthlessness after overthrowing her father, Hera questions her place as his wife and as a mother and seeks a path beyond endless violence in a retelling of the classic Greek myth.
“A Sorceress Comes to Call” by T. Kingfisher. Raised by an evil sorceress, Cordelia must choose between her controlling mother and the kindness of a stranger to save innocent lives in a dark retelling of The Goose Girl by the Brothers Grimm.
“And So I Roar” by Abi Dare. After accidentally hearing a secret conversation between her terminally ill mother and her aunt, Tia must choose between protecting a runaway girl or uncovering a truth that could change the lives of the girls in their Nigerian village.
“By Any Other Name” by Jodi Picoult. Across centuries two women, Melina Green and Emilia Bassano, one a modern playwright and the other her Elizabethan ancestor, each fight societal expectations to have their voices heard on the stage in a world that silences female playwrights.
“Close Knit” by Jenny Colgan. The New York Times best-selling author returns with the story of a woman who leaves her knitting circle for a job to become a flight attendant in this romantic summer novel set in Scotland’s Northern isles.
“The Ghost Cat” by Alex Howard. Follows a cat through his nine lives in Edinburgh, moving through the ever-changing city and its inhabitants over centuries.
“A Great Marriage” by Frances Mayes. Dara and Austin begin a whirlwind romance and engagement after meeting at a New York City gallery, only to have their love shattered by a life-altering family secret that forces the cancellation of their big day. “The Seventh Veil of Salome” by Silvia Moreno-Garcia.
“The Rose Arbor” by Rhys Bowen. In 1968 London, obituary writer Liz Houghton, to break into the newsroom at a London newspaper, helps her best friend, a police officer, investigate a high-profile case and uncovers a mystery dating back to World War II that is linked to the recent disappearance of a young girl and a murder.