"Reading" the Bible from Cover to Cover

I have always been impressed whenever I had met two groups of people. 

The First Group - People who read the same books every year. They say, "O I read the Lord of the Rings every year," or, "Every year I reread Orthodoxy by Chesterton." They read them, I imagine because they get to visit an old friend(s) and get new things out of them.

The Second Group - People who have read the entire Bible. I have been challenged a few times read the Bible from cover to cover, and there is Leviticus. 'sigh'

Then I found Jeff Cavins and the Great Adventure Bible Timeline Program found HERE . Jeff only covers the 14 books that tell the story. He also shows how the other books fit into the context of these 14. For example, many of the Psalms were written by King David yet they are 4 books away from each other, or that you read Ruth in the context of the Judges. It is an excellent program and I can't recommend it enough.

But had I still read ALL the books? - well I was sure that I read most, or at least heard most. Had I? I thought why am I giving this any second thought at all - Dude just read it already! I hate reading. But I LOVE listening. so I forced myself and listened all the way through an audio Bible. Last year it took from the end of December through February. 

THE PAY OFF - Now while some of it I knew immediately I had NEVER listened to, e.g. all the names in Ezra, Nehemiah., other parts kind of surprised me, and other parts were very familiar. 

• The pay off came when I went to church and heard the readings, I had just read all of them, so they were like, friends ( I would think - I just listened to this). 
• When someone said - I was just reading Job, or Ezekiel, or whoever - I could say - I just read that too. 
• I got to hear those Old Testament quotes in context that are quoted in the New Testament. 
• The worst enemy of the Israelites were themselves, yes they were attacked by others, but if you were trying to live the law of Moses and be faithful. Good Luck, because most of your fellow Israelites are barely interested. 
• God is not mean, or a jerk, or vengeful. God is a living Father who has to deal with barbarians. I know my ancestors were barbarians - but everyone's ancestors are barbarians, even the Israelites. And as we all know - barbarians are hard to work with, and they only understand a certain type of language. God was speaking to them on their level. Also, most of those "angry" prophetic letters are all written to the same group of people. We only hear them one after another and it feels like it takes forever to get through them.

So I am interested in what YOU have to say -

Do you have a book you reread every year?

Have you read the Bible cover to cover? What were the benefits / drawbacks?

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