What did Dan Read? To find out, Dan Pelzer’s family is keeping his memory alive after his passing through a dedicated website honouring his memory – and his reading list.
What-dan-read.com features a smiling, waving senior, backlit by a neon sign boasting the words: Ice Crispy Cold Beer. The dates read: 1962 – 2025. You’re compelled to click. And the homepage flips like the page of a book. The book of Dan Pelzer. A veteran, a family man, and a prolific reader. A man who loved books. And kept a list of them.
It reads: A book list for the ages … Dan Pelzer has read 3,000 books since 1962. After leaving the Peace Corps, marrying and starting a family, Pelzer continued chronicling a life’s journey in books. The article was written by Mike Harding in 2006.
If they say a book should hook you from the first line, then Pelzer’s story certainly reels in the reader. 3,000 books? In one lifetime? And how did he know? What list did he use? How did he keep track?
As the saying goes … read on for more.
I skimmed through the introductory paragraph, anxious to see if an actual list was available on the website. I clicked off the second page, past the poised image of Pelzer and a book, set against a library. I clicked over to see the webpage flip again like a book – and there before me was Pelzer’s notes.
Or more aptly titled – Pelzer’s entire book list.
Its earliest entry includes Pelzer’s careful penmanship on a yellowing page, with the inscribed words “Books in Nepal,” dating back to Pelzer’s volunteer stint with the Peace Corps in 1962. Harding’s article explains the Corps provided volunteers with a 150-strong book library that Pelzer took advantage of.
In his list, the books are arranged in alphabetical ordering, the pages are numbered, the book title is organized.
The Blue Nile, Moorehead, Alan. Followed by Babbit, Lewis Sinclair. Further down the list includes Moby Dick, The Odyssey, The Thin Red Line, The Scarlet Letter. Each documented with precision, each clearly legible, and each a part of a list that would continue for years to come.
Through-out the list, Pelzer toggles between handwriting his ledger and using a typewriter to keep his notes pristine. Some of the pages are crisp and white. Others look to be scraps, or extra pads of paper he came across that would do in a pinch. At one point, Pelzer begins numbering the books to track how many he completed in a given year. By the aughts, he’d also brought in the use of a computer.
On December 30, 2023, Pelzer scrawled the words: David Copperfield, Charles Dickens. He then tallied up his reading list to a staggering 3599 books across his extraordinary lifetime. The final page of the website is a photo of Pelzer looking on at the camera, a bottle of Danhattan in his hand, wearing the expression of an unassuming family man who couldn’t have been less aware that his joy of reading would go on to inspire book lovers around the world.
At centrestage of Harding’s prose on Dan Pelzer is a man with a love of reading so great, he lives on through his meticulously written reading list now published for all to enjoy.
Be inspired by Dan Pelzer at https://what-dan-read.com/ and don’t forget to track your reading list right here at BookNotification.com.
Got a cool story to tell? Email care@booknotification.com
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Care is the Social Media Manager at Book Notification. She is an avid reader/writer, Mama to 3 adult kids, a wedding DJ, and a snob for coffee and pop culture. Her favourite book is Maniac Magee by Jerry Spinelli. She lives in Canada with her husband and record collection.