Dan Pelzer died earlier this year at the age of 92, leaving behind handwritten Of all the books he had read since 1962. His family had digitized it, said it onlineAnd now it has become viral, somewhat to the surprise of those of us who had never heard of him before. But it is, it seems, how the Pelzer himself unpretentious wanted him, according to the impression given by his adult children when he was interviewed on the popularity of the reading list of more than 100 pages of 100 pages. He started to keep it when he was parked in Nepal as a volunteer of the Peace Corps, and kept him until the end of his reading days in 2025, long after his retirement from his work as a social worker in a juvenile correctional center of Ohio.
Examined together, if in the form of a full scan or a PDF consultableThe 3,599 pounds, most of them checked from the library, which Pelzer recorded after reading constituted a personal cultural history of the last six decades. Described as a devout Catholic, he certainly seems to have been coherent in his pursuit of an interest not only in the history of Christianity in particular, but in the history of Western civilization in general.
It is not surprising to see him dig in Will and Ariel during The history of civilization The series at the beginning of the nineteen, slightly surprising, but he read his eleven volumes in an apparently random order. This habit turns out to be characteristic: although renowned for ending each book he started, he only succeeded in six volumes of Anthony Powell A dance on the music of time,, Starting with the eleventh and ending with the tenth.
Interspersed with the books of The history of civilization are tastes of Philip Caputo A Rumor of warJohn Irving The world According to Garpand three novels by Ken Follett. Although concerned about the history of humanity, Pelzer also seems to have had a weakness for gender thrillers (he remembers him like a big fan of John Grisham) and news books. But whether it is on a high -level reading, at low or intermediate, it seems to have been willing to give all the great religions and political philosophies, as well as minors, a fair audience – or rather a fair reading. This makes striking juxtapositions in his list: Ayn Rand followed by L. Ron Hubbard, Ta-Nehisi Coates by Jonathan Haidt. In this regard, it was perhaps the ideal of the common reader committed and “democrat” that we imagine populating America while never meeting in a way. If his list raises the question of why he did not enter a more ambitious intellectual work line, that also answers him: what time would have been able to read?
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Based in Seoul, Colin MArshall Written and broadcastTS on cities, language and culture. His projects include the substack newsletter Books on cities And the book The stateless city: a walk through Los Angeles from the 21st century. Follow it on the social network formerly known as Twitter in @ColinmArshall.