2021 Mooks™ Awards
Feast or famine, folks. In 2020, not news for those of you religiously following my annual reading stats (i.e., EVERYONE), I absolutely smashed all of my previous word count records with a staggering 4.5 million words read in the year. Historically, the last time I had a record-breaking feast of words read, I did not recover to the mean for the following three years. So it should not come as a great surprise that in the year following my greatest word count year ever, I experienced a famine, receiving my fourth lowest word count on record by barely registering 2 million words (the 2,076,547 words sat just above the separate totals for the three years following the first feast).
In other news, however, I succeeded in getting reinstated to my mother’s elite book club (how was I ousted in the first place? It’s complicated, okay), which means that I have a greater variety of books that I’ll be reading — if not also bring up the average publication date (though there haven’t been enough yet to dent that low number!).
For reference, here are previous Mooks™ Awards winners: 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020. And here is a list of book ratings and reviews that I wrote for new books (and a couple re-reads) on Goodreads.
Statistics
Original Reads-21
Re-reads-3
Total-24
Oldest-(Play) Romeo and Juliet (1594); (Non-fiction) Fear and Trembling (1843); (Fiction) The Æneid (19 BCE)
Newest-(Play) The Honeymoonshiners (1923); (Non-fiction) Bear River Massacre (2019); (Fiction) The Remarkable Journey of Coyote Sunshine (2019)
Shortest-Behind a Mask (40,852)
Longest-(Non-fiction) Undaunted Courage (221,426); (Fiction) Lonesome Dove (365,712)
Average Words Per Book-86,523
Average Words Read Per Day-5,689 (≈20 pages per day)
Average Word to Page Ratio-280
Greatest Disparity in Word to Page Ratio-Undaunted Courage (457)
Average Year Published-1806 (including outlier Æneid)
Median Year Published-1905
Most Repeated Author-William Shakespeare (3); Owen Wister (2); Stephen Ambrose (2)
Authors Who Go By Two First Initials-G.K. Chesterton; P.G. Wodehouse
Longest Author Name: Jonathan Safran Foer
Longest Book Title: The Remarkable Journey of Coyote Sunrise
Most Productive Month for Book Completions-May (4)
BEST PLAY
Coriolanus
This play has everything I could ask for: adventure, battle strategy, noble yet humble characters performing brave and heroic deeds, political intrigue and machinations, and a happy ending (oh, wait … okay, not quite everything). This is an overlooked great one by Shakespeare.
Honorable Mention-A Man’s World
BEST NON-FICTION
Citizen Soldiers
Not my typical non-fiction read, which are generally biographies or books that focus on major players in specific historical events, this non-fiction takes oral histories from the regular American troops — privates, medics, non-commissioned officers — and tracks their experiences as they advanced towards Germany after D-Day. The result is episodic, but it shows the reality of war for its most overlooked participants in a way that is dignified while also sobering.
Special Category Awards
Most Well-Known-Romeo and Juliet
Most Obscure-The Honeymoonshiners
While not as rare as Wister’s other play that I had to get scanned from his papers at the Library of Congress (see 2020), this play is published. Just out of print (yet not digitally online requiring a used book store purchase).
Honorable Mentions-A Man’s World; Behind a Mask
Best Book Read with the Kids-The Prince and the Pauper
Most Vacuous Title-Extremely Close and Incredibly Loud
Most Inaccurate Book Titles-The Winter’s Tale (one scene is in the winter); Fear and Trembling (try “Faith and Inspiration”); Extremely Close and Incredibly Loud (my eyesight is excellent, so I kept it at a comfortable arm’s length … and perhaps the audiobook is loud, but the version I read was as silent as the story’s plot)
Best Surprise-Behind a Mask
Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women is an American masterpiece for its thoughtful showcasing of values and virtues with the growing girls of the wholesome March family. Behind a Mask is devious and has characters in moral decay — yet it is superbly written and downright entertaining.
Worst Surprise-The Gunslinger
After missing out on Stephen King for decades, I finally got what I thought would be a clever and amusing Stephen King work. Nope. For such a short novel, it was slow paced. For such a promising title, it was pretty boring.
Most Abrupt and Unexpected But Not Unappreciated Shift in Story-The Man Who Was Thursday
Most Cringe-Worthy But Well-intentioned Scene-Cannery Row
Most Satisfyingly Dissatisfying-Behind a Mask
Least Satisfyingly Dissatisfying-Lonesome Dove
Most Prescient-Voyage to the Moon
Almost four centuries before the advent of modern technology, Monsieur de Bergerac predicts several futuristic concepts that are surprisingly accurate — the audiobook being his most disturbingly spot on, down to the earbuds
Most Disturbing Scene-Martin Eden
Coolest Setting-The Remarkable Journey of Coyote Sunrise
Most Inspiring-Fear and Trembling
Best Duo-Gus and Captain McCall (Lonesome Dove)
Funniest-Full Moon
Best Supporting Character-Deets (Lonesome Dove)
Best Male Character-Martin Eden (Martin Eden)
The dude’s passion for learning and dedication to pursuing it (and love) at all costs and against all obstacles is human, impressive, and inspiring.
Best Female Character-Marian Halcombe (The Woman in White)
Industrious, brave, full of integrity. Marian Halcombe is impressively independent in a world designed to keep women wholly dependent on male counterparts.
Honorable Mention-Frank Ware (A Man’s World)
Goofiest Character-Lord Emsworth (Full Moon)
This adorably idiotic aristocrat is so foggy-headed that his siblings literally have him write down the simplest, most common sense instructions, so he doesn’t bungle things up. For the sake of humor and plot twists, Clarence, the 9th Earl of Blandings, still manages to disappoint, gloriously.
Best Villain-Count Fosco (The Woman in White)
It’s not just enough for Count Fosco to act contrary to the interests of the protagonists in the story, but he also has these strange quirks like his passionate endearment to his pets and a weird yet genuine attraction to one of the protagonists, as well as a frankness and openness that is helpful (for the narrative) while also disturbing. All of these combine to make for a devious, creepy, and unpredictable foe.
(Dis)honorable Mentions-Blue Duck (Lonesome Dove); The Man in Black (The Gunslinger); Jean Muir (Behind a Mask…villain or hero?); Sunday (The Man Who Was Thursday…villain or something else entirely?!)
Best Re-read-The Dragon of Wantley
BEST NOVEL
Martin Eden
No dogs or wolves, no prolonged period on boats, and yet this is superb work by Jack London. In Martin Eden London captures the character of what it means to transcend our fate in life. Finding worthwhile pursuits and dedicating ourselves to them heart and soul is the only thing that can bring lasting satisfaction, if London’s Martin Eden has any say in it. The ending shows that the vices of humanity might just be enough to smother the ambitions of the greatest among us, but I choose the earlier message and feel that adding an element of spirituality to his philosophy might have garnered a more hopeful conclusion.
Appendix A
List of all books and plays read in 2021 in the order read (grouped in the order completed by — respectively — plays, non-fiction, and fiction). Italics represents rereads.
The Winter’s Tale
A Man’s World
Romeo and Juliet
Coriolanus
The Honeymoonshiners
Bear River Massacre: A Shoshone History
Citizen Soldiers
Fear and Trembling
Undaunted Courage
Lonesome Dove
Behind a Mask
The Dragon of Wantley
Martin Eden
Cannery Row
Voyage to the Moon
The Woman in White
The Prince and the Pauper
Conquest of the Seven Trees
The Man Who Was Thursday
Full Moon
The Remarkable Journey of Coyote Sunrise
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
The Æneid
The Gunslinger
Appendix B
Memorable Quotes
People didn’t like you for telling the truth. Cannery Row
There are two possible reactions to social ostracism — either a man emerges determined to be better, purer, and kindlier or he goes bad, challenges the world and does even worse things. Cannery Row
The things we admire in men, kindness and generosity, openness, honesty, understanding and feeling, are the concomitants of failure in our system. And those traits we detest, sharpness, greed, acquisitiveness, meanness, egotism and self-interest, are the traits of success. And while men admire the quality of the first they love the produce of the second. Cannery Row
We go to Nature for comfort in trouble, and sympathy in joy, only in books. The Woman in White
Through all the ways of our unintelligible world the trivial and the terrible walk hand in hand together. The Woman in White
The best men are not consistent in good — why should the worst men be consistent in evil? The Woman in White
One of the rarest of all the intellectual accomplishments that a man can possess is the grand faculty of arranging his ideas. The Woman in White
For they can conquer, who believe they can. The Æneid
It is great to give up one’s wish, but it is greater to keep a firm grip on it after having given it up. Fear and Trembling.
As I have always held it a crime to anticipate evils I will believe it a good comfortable road until I am compelled to believe different. -Meriwether Lewis Undaunted Courage
O sacred hunger of pernicious gold! What bands of faith can impious lucre hold? The Æneid
Every young man starting out in life should wear a false beard, if only for a day or two. Full Moon
There is always something very restful about a duck. Whatever earthquakes and upheavals may be afflicting the general public, it stands aloof from them and just goes on being a duck. Full Moon
Time’s the thief of memory. The Gunslinger
Greater physiological knowledge of the brain makes the existence of the soul less possible yet more probable by the nature of the search. The Gunslinger
Knowing how to Read as soon as Speak, they are never without Lectures, in their Chambers, their Walks, the Town, or Travelling; they may have in their Pockets, or at their Girdles, Thirty of these Books, where they need but wind up a Spring to hear a whole Chapter, and so more, if they have a mind to hear the Book quite through; so that you never want the Company of all the great Men, living and Dead, who entertain you with Living Voices. This Present employed me about an hour; and then hanging them to my Ears, like a pair of Pendants, I went a Walking. Voyage to the Moon
“As to the Mathematician,” said he, “let that be no hindrance to you; for he is a Man who promises much, and performs little or nothing.” Voyage to the Moon
It was better to submit to a small inconvenience, than to open a door to a hundred of great Importance. Voyage to the Moon
The more I encreased in Knowledge, the more I knew my Ignorance. Voyage to the Moon
For to oblige me to give a Reason for every thing that comes into my Imagination, is to stop my Mouth, and make me confess that in things of that nature my Reason shall always stoop to to Faith. Voyage to the Moon
There are no words to express the abyss between isolation and having one ally. The Man Who Was Thursday
The dangerous criminal is the educated criminal. The Man Who Was Thursday
Thieves respect property. They merely wish the property to become their property that they may more perfectly respect it. The Man Who Was Thursday
Fight the thing that you fear. The Man Who Was Thursday
GASKELL: Nature made men different.
FRANK: Don’t make nature the excuse for ruining the life of a good girl.
A Man’s World
You never know anybody through and through till you fight with them. A Man’s World
Men are pigs of course. They take all they can get and don’t give any more than they have to. It’s a man’s world — that’s the size of it. A Man’s World
Love was the most exalted expression of life. Martin Eden
He had been deceived into believing that college educations and mastery were the same things. Martin Eden
He denied the worthwhileness of artistry when divorced from humanness. Martin Eden
It would do a good deed to break the heads of nine-tenths of the English professors. Martin Eden
I have faith in myself. I know what I have in me. Martin Eden
The drink was an effect, not a cause. Martin Eden
It is a great task to transmute feeling and sensation into speech, written or spoken, that will, in turn, in him who reads or listens, transmute itself back into the selfsame feeling and sensation. It is a lordly task. Martin Eden
There was much that was dim and nebulous in that world, but he saw it as a whole and not in detail, and he saw, also, the way to master it. To write! Martin Eden
The more he knew, the more passionately he admired the universe, and life, and his own life in the midst of it all. Martin Eden
Limited minds can recognize limitations only in others. Martin Eden
Understand! Martin Eden
He conceived purity to be the superlative of goodness and of cleanness, the sum of which constituted eternal life. Martin Eden
Her body was more than the garb of her spirit. It was an emanation of her spirit, a pure and gracious crystallization of her divine essence. Martin Eden
Always be comic in a tragedy. What the deuce else can you do? The Man Who Was Thursday
The poor have sometimes objected to being governed badly; the rich have always objected to being governed at all. The Man Who Was Thursday
The philosopher may sometimes love the infinite; the poet always loves the finite. The Man Who Was Thursday
