OK, so the office read-off of 2012 is complete, and Blake is the clear winner this year in terms of the number of books and page count. Here is his book tower with 30 titles (I think three are missing):

A side-by-side tower (a la this post) was not possible this year because I took a job in a different state, and we borrowed a few books here and there, so this list will have to suffice:

• “Grant” by Jean Edward Smith – 628, finished late January (-200 pages in 2011) = 428
• “The Killer Angels” by Michael Shaara, finished Feb. 12 – 374
• “General Lee’s Army: From Victory To Collapse” by Joseph Glatthaar – 475
• “This Mighty Scourge” by James McPherson – 272
• “State of Denial” by Bob Woodward – 491 (finished April 2)
• “The Greatest Show On Earth” by Richard Dawkins (started late March, finished May 13) – 437
• “Madison and Jefferson” by Andrew Burstein and Nancy Isenberg (started May 16) – 644. Finished July 21.
• “From the Temple to the Castle” by Lee Morrissey (started May 13) – 144 (finished July 22)
• “Lyndon B. Johnson and American Liberalism” by Bruce Scheulman (started mid-July, finished Aug. 19) – 245 = 3510
• “You Can’t Go Home Again” by Thomas Wolfe (started Aug. 19, finished Oct. 10) – 743 = 4253
• “Grant and Sherman” by Charles Flood (started Oct. 10, finished Nov. 7) – 402 = 4655
• “The American Civil War” by John Keegan (started Aug. 19, finished Dec. 31) – 5020.

Thus, my final count was about 5,000 pages, and he came in at more than 9,000 pages.

I think we may have come to an agreement that the five best history books we have read in the last three years are as follows:

• “Grant” by  Jean Edward Smith
• “Lyndon Johnson and the Great Society“ by John A., III Andrew
• “Ratification: The People Debate the Constitution, 1787-1788″ by Pauline Meier by Pauline Maier
• “Battle Cry of Freedom” by James McPherson
• “Grant and Sherman” by Charles Bracelen Flood

Explore any of these, and you can’t go wrong.