What Dan Read
August 29, 2025
To Inspire:
Dan Pelzer is a viral sensation. After the Columbus man died July 1 at the age of 92, his children found that throughout his life their father kept track of every book he read. The list, titled What Dan Read is now influencing readers around the world.
If you’re in central Ohio, you may have already heard this story in the local media (and it’s had national coverage as well), but as someone who loves to read, this story is too good not to share!
As a Peace Corp volunteer in Nepal in 1962 Dan found the corps had provided a small library of paperbacks for volunteers. The first book he read was “The Blue Nile.” He jotted the book and author down on the back of a piece of paper.
He moved on through more books while in the Corp, keeping track of each one. After leaving the Peace Corp and marrying, Dan kept recording his reading journey, resulting in a single-spaced list of 109 pages, much of it hand-written.
The retired social worker read and chronicled 3,599 books, and that doesn’t include those he read from grade school until he started in the Peace Corp. He read every genre and just about everywhere, according to his daughter Marci Pelzer. In a recent interview she said, “We know he was sometimes reading at work. But he also read on the bus and everywhere he went. He always had a book open, a book in his hand. And it stimulated great conversations with all kinds of people.”
In a 2006 interview with Mike Harden of The Columbus Dispatch, Dan said he never quit a book, even some real “dogs.” He tackled – and finished – some of the classics that most of us avoid, but did say of “Ulysses,” the famously hard-to-read novel by Irish writer James Joyce, “The worst. Pure torture.”
The last book Dan listed was Charles Dicken’s “David Copperfield” in 2023. The second to last book was “Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow,” a 2022 coming-of-age novel his daughter Marci recommended. He always read anything recommended to him.
After finding the list, Marci and her brother John considered copying and handing it out to friends and family at Dan’s funeral, but it was just too long. So, they built a website – WhatDanRead.com – so people can see and flip through Dan’s actual list. In his obituary, they suggested people read ‘a real page turner’ in lieu of flowers.
Dan got most of his books from the Columbus Metropolitan Library, and when the Library heard about the list, they decided to share it to help inspire others looking for something to read. They have displays in the libraries, and social media posts which have been viewed by millions.
While he didn’t keep his list to brag, and most of his friends didn’t even know it existed, his family thinks he would love that it is being shared. “He’s very interested in a peaceful world and the kinds of dialogue that make us more tolerant of one another,” Marci said. “So, he would have loved it all.”
Here’s the link to the Columbus Metropolitan Library’s alphabetized PDF of What Dan Read. They also built a searchable database of titles in the library system.
I hope you can take a moment this long holiday weekend and look through Dan’s amazing list. And I hope you find something inspiring to add to your own list.
Written by Michelle O’Brien, Manager of Marketing & Communications