George’s Reading Scribblers
When George was about 12 he took a scribbler and started keeping track of the books he read. He’s done that his whole life.
He noted only books, not journals, chapbooks, magazines, etc. Books he taught, mostly anthologies, also are not included because he was reading only sections.
The early scribblers have been handled so much they are falling apart. The handwriting has evolved over the decades.
Someone suggested that the data in the scribblers should be a database, so Jean spent many months creating one and keeps it updated, and now available to the public.
A few years ago Rolf Maurer--then publisher of New Star Books-- heard about the scribblers, got really interested, and the result was an essay about the books that George wrote about the books he read in 1967, which was published somewhere. That essay is telling of George the Archivist. You can read it here.
Click below to open the Google Sheet in a new window:
Here's the way the page in the scribbler--and now the columns of the database--is organized.
Column A: Scribbler # and date the page was started. George did not start dating the page until July 7, 1959.
Col. B: Page number in the scribbler
Col. C: Publisher code. In scribblers 1 and 2 there is a list of the codes. In the last scribbler often the publisher is noted by "Cela" or "Audible" indicating George listened to the book, being no longer able to read because of diminishing eyesight.
Col. D: Number of the book. There are a few errors--numbers repeated, or numbers skipped, but not many.
Col. E: Book title
Col. F: How many books he has read by that author. When George had read 10 books by one author he made a page with a list which was stapled to the cover of the current scribbler--that made it easier to keep track of the frequently read authors. In the database when a writer’s number hits 10 it is highlighted in yellow.
Col. G: The author's (or editor's) name.
Addition: At the bottom of the sheet you'll find two sub-sheets: one for Publishers' Codes, and one containing a list of the authors for whom George read ten or more books (and an aggregate total for each).
