Year Recap 1: 2013

Welp, that was an amazing year for reading. It’s been a week since the project’s completion and I feel like the impact of it hasn’t sunk in yet. The Biblio-Mat has provided enormous entertainment for the last twelve months and I can say with no exaggeration that it was the best $104.00 I have ever spent.

Not gonna find a better deal than that.

Besides making me an ace on animal entomology for trivia night, it also gave me a bookshelf of antiquarian books that may just look impressive enough for anyone breaking into my place to fill their sacks with literature instead of electronics.

Without further ado, here’s the recap of my year with the Biblio-Mat:

The Top Five

Been a fun ride.

1. H.H.: or The Pathology of Princes (Week 3) – Probably the most interesting book of the year. Such a rare and brilliant piece of propaganda.

2. Roma (Week 12) – As one of the earlier hands on projects, it was by far the most fun of all the entries.

3. Camels!! (Week 34) – Unexpectedly turned out to be one of the funniest books I’ve ever read.

4. Le Pages’s Petit Lecteur Des Colleges (Week 50) – Quite possibly the most useful book I’ve gotten. Machine knows me too well.

5. Quest Under Capricorn (Week 14) – David Attenborough is a jerk. But an entertaining one.  

Honorable mention: 1001 Yiddish Proverbs (Week 27) – Cause who doesn’t like a book of quotes?

The Bottom Five

Couldn't forget these even if I wanted to.

-5. Over Prairie Trails (Week 7) – Better off with a DIY lobotomy. Worst book I’ve read in a decade.

-4. The English Lake District (Week 25) – Where the hell were the lakes?

-3. Patterned Backgrounds for Needlepoint (Week 22) – Still working on the stupid thing. Lesson learned.

-2. Good Food for Bad Stomachs (Week 23) – Quite surprised I didn’t get food poisoning from this.

-1. The Leisure Hour (Week 46) – Amazing book in so many aspects except that it was serialized and this volume left one of the main stories dangling. My chances of finding the 1884 volume are slim to nil and slim died of old age a few century turns ago.

Dishonorable mention: Understanding Children’s Play (Week 24) – Do not follow any of the advice from this book for raising your kids. Seriously.

June was a terrible month...

As much as I would love to continue on with this project, though, I have quickly realized that I had only read two other books out of my giant stack of backlogged books that I said I was going to read last year. Even being a quick reader, most of the Biblio-Mat books this year swallowed up all my evening reading time, and I budget out at least an hour every night, so unfortunately I won’t be continuing on with the one a week project.

That being said, it’s funny how when you do something for a year it becomes routine to the point where you feel empty without it. This blog itself actually won’t be dying, but will in fact undergo a metamorphosis of sorts into a new Biblio-Mat project for 2014. Still working out the details but it should be a fun year.