Here, I’m forced to be brutally honest with myself. Any hope I had of winning this contest was always a lie. I had a great August; I read six books (six!), most of them really good. And I didn’t make up any ground at all.
The table above may make it look like I narrowed the gap, and I did, briefly. But the first week in September, Rachel knocked out two quick books, and just like that, it was like my good August never happened. This is how it was always going to be: she just has to decide to step on the gas and she’s a Road Runner cloud over the horizon.
I will now begin the process of coming to grips with this reality. You’ll know I’ve passed from denial into acceptance when I either a) just say to heck with it and spend the rest of the year reading Lord of the Rings, or b) re-read The Kingdom of Speech, because, dang, it was good.