A man who read 3,599 books over 60 years has left behind an extraordinary archive of his reading life, with one novel singled out as the worst he ever encountered. Dan Pelzer began his literary marathon in 1962 while serving in the Peace Corps in Nepal, working through a small volunteer library of 150 books. Upon returning home, he continued reading voraciously, logging every title he finished.
Pelzer read everything from classics to memoirs to John Grisham, averaging over 80 books per year. He obtained almost all of them from his local library, keeping costs minimal. At the end of his life, he left his family a 109-page list containing 3,599 entries, having finished every single book he started, even those he disliked.
The book he deemed the worst was James Joyce's Ulysses, which he described as "pure torture." The modernist novel, published in 1920, follows three characters through a single day in Dublin, June 16, 1904. It was banned in the UK upon publication for obscenity, a ban that was lifted in 1936.
Social media users praised Pelzer's dedication, with one commenting that he had "basically created his own Goodreads" before the platform existed. Another noted that his local library displays how much money users save by borrowing instead of buying books, adding: "Boy I wish we'd seen his haha." A touching tribute read: "May he rest in peace. He will be missed."
