There weren't many that could slow him down. He read while riding the elliptical at the gym, dabbled in audio books and always had the next title in hand when boarding the band's touring mobile home.

"I was amazed," said wife Carolyn. "Sometimes he'd have one on the bus, one at home and one on tape."

Green saved one of the biggest for last: "A Man Without Qualities," a 750-page World War I story by Robert Musil.

To get through the full list as fast as he did, Green clipped through about three books per week, or 150 each year — plus all the reading he did outside of the big list.

"If I had only done those books, I'd probably have gone insane," he said. "Although some of them were a real revelation, a real joy."

Reach Tony Gonzalez at 615-259-8089 or on Twitter @tgonzalez.

Ranger Doug recommends

• "The Good Soldier Švejk," by Jaroslav Hašek — "Like a literary Laurel and Hardy movie."

• Quirky novels by Australian writer Peter Carey

• "Exercises in Style," by Raymond Queneau, an experimental book that tells the same short narrative in 99 writing styles

• "The History of Tom Jones" by Henry Fielding

• Novels by Charles Dickens — "I didn't realize Dickens was so funny."

Ranger Doug warns against

• "The Making of Americans," by Gertrude Stein — "an interesting literary experiment in repetition for 30 pages ... and over 900 pages ... torture."

• Novels by Samuel Beckett

• "Adjunct: An Undigest," by a Scottish writer Peter Manson, an experimental pamphlet