2012 reading challenge

[TheFifthElement]

Well DarkMuse is reading around the world in 80 books (which is a fab idea, by the way) and Scher is still doing the Pullizer and BBC Big Read and probably the around the world thing (I don't know how she finds the time) and I too am looking for a 2012 reading challenge. My 2011 challenge was to read significantly more books by female writers and I've achieved that, so for 2012 my new challenge is:

wait for it....

don't get too excited...

MAMMOTH NOVELS

So, to explain, I'm trying to slow myself down, get myself deeper and deeper and deeper into a story and to do this I think I need to read some much longer books. Books of 600+ pages. So far I have the following on my list of potential candidates:

The Tale of Genji
War & Peace
Anna Karenina
The Poisonwood Bible
Mickelsson's Ghosts
The Corrections
The Women's Room
The Three Musketeers
Middlemarch
Don Quixote
Gravity's Rainbow
Infinite Jest

and something by Dickens, I haven't decided exactly what yet (I was thinking The Old Curiosity Shop). I'd also still like to keep some kind of gender balance in this too, difficult as that might be.

So:

1) would anyone like to join me on the mammoth read challenge, and
2) any suggestions for great mammoth books to read? I'm up for pretty much anything so long as it's long :D

[Scheherazade]

Books of 600+ words. You mean 600+ pages, right?

:D

How about A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth? It is the longest book in English language that's printed in one volume or something along those lines and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

I also enjoyed American Gods by Neil Gaiman and Pickwick Papers by Dickens (one of the funniest things he wrote, I think).

I wouldn't mind reading Poisonwood Bible with you, for example, if you start group discussions on them :)

[TheFifthElement]

Dur, yes 600+ pages. I've changed that now.

I'll try and remember to start a thread when I read Poisonwood.

[Desolation]

I have a list of books that I call "The Monsters"...Books that are either very long or very complicated that I want to read. Originally, I was going to make this year a giant book year, then I decided to go for American lit instead.

But, the monsters are:
Ulysses by James Joyce
In Search of Lost Time by Marcel Proust
Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon
The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann
Don Quixote by Cervantes
Moby Dick by Herman Melville
Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak
The Man Without Qualities by Robert Musil
Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace

And, the biggest monster of them all, clocking in at the smallest page count of the group...
Finnegan's Wake by James Joyce

[Des Essientes]

I suggest you read Henryk Sienkiewicz's Trilogy. The English Translation I read had the titles as follows: With Fire and Sword, The Deluge, and Fire in the Steppe. It totals over 3100 pages and it is, in my opinion, far more exciting, interesting and humorous than War and Peace. Sienkiewicz truly deserved his Nobel Prize.

[Gregory Samsa]

2666 by Roberto Bolaño. 912 pages, very good.

[Calidore]

Surprised to not see Les Miserables on there.

Also, Three Musketeers, which by itself may not be as long as you want, is actually the first book in a trilogy. You can add Twenty Years After or go whole hog and include Ten Years Later as well. Note that the latter is also very long, so publishers generally lop off the first 2/3 to 3/4 and publish the remainder as Man in the Iron Mask. Oxford Worlds Classics has the entire thing in three volumes (five total for the series). Just FYI.

For that matter, Count of Monte Cristo is plenty long itself.

Lord of the Rings was intended to be one novel, but the publisher split it up into a trilogy.

[victorianfan]

Bleak House, David Copperfield, Our Mutual Friend, Nicholas Nickleby all by Charles Dickens.
He Knew He Was Right and The Way We Live Now by Anthony Trollope
The Brothers Karamazov by Dostoevsky

......

[Brett Cottrell]

Anna Karenina
The Brothers Karamozov
The Idiot
Moby Dick

Not sure where it comes in on the page count, but it's a good read. I'm not too big on Kingsolver's prose, but I like her storytelling.

[Vladimir777]

Not sure if you have any interest, but The Bible could be thrown into this group (as well as other religious writings from other religions). I'm trying to tackle it currently myself (in the King James version), and I actually find it very fun. I've read about 550 pages of the Old Testament (it has a little over 1,000 pages) currently. I'm going to finish the OT, move onto something else, then come back and tackle the Apocrypha and New Testament. If you haven't read it yet, I wholeheartedly recommend it! Even if you don't read anything, there are a ton of great books in it (so far, Genesis, Exodus, Deuteronomy, The Books of Samuel and Kings).

[qimissung]

Several books on your list are on mine, also, so I'll try to read those with you, although I've noticed I'm not very good at reading on a schedule.

[PoeticPassions]

Demons (or in other translations: The Possessed) by Dostoevsky
Also voting for Les Mis
An American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser
East of Eden by Steinbeck (just over 600 pages)

[kasie]

Sitting on my To Be Read shelf, giving me sadly neglected looks, are two whoppers left from my Read-about-New-York-to-Get-the-Most-Out-of-Your-Trip plan: Don DeLillo's Underworld (827pp) and Mark Helprin's Winter's Tale (748pp). The opening pages of both really grabbed me but somehow I've never got around to reading the rest of either. Jonathan Franzen's The Corrections joined them shortly after my return and again, only the first few pages have been read. And Moby Dick and Don Quixote have been there ever since the TBR shelf was just a TBR-When-I-Retire box - perhaps I should join you in your 2012 challenge? :smile5:

There is one that I'm saving for a long, indulgent read - C J Sansom's latest Shardlake book, Heartstone (631pp + Author's Afterword). I need something absorbing for the dark, wet afternoons ahead.

[Rores28]

I'll second Brother Karamazov and Moby Dick which are both excellent.

East of Eden is good as well. If you like steinbeck you will like this.

I will give a negative recommendation for American Gods. I feel as though I'm the only person who didn't like this book. I really feel like over the quality of Gaiman's prose is fairly poor, thought the concept of the book is pretty cool as are all of the grifts that occur in it.

Also "The Recognitions". I haven't read it, but the handful of people who have always seem to rave about it.

EDIT sorry didnt see that you already had the corrections on your list.

[TheFifthElement]

Thanks for all the suggestions everyone :) I hadn't realised Les Miserables was quite so long which is why it wasn't on my list (I didn't really do much research, just mainly had a look through what was already languishing unread on my shelves :D ) but I think if I was to read one book by Dumas I'd probably rather read The Three Musketeers, can't exactly say why. It is just long enough - my copy is dangerously 666 pages long. Spooky.

I think I'd like to add The Brothers Karamazov to my list of reads and the Sienkiewicz trilogy looks really interesting but is hazardously expensive here so I'm not sure about that, but in my investigation I noticed he wrote Quo Vadis and I think I'd like to add that to a future reading list. Phew. I also thought of The Woman in White which is also a whopper and could be interesting, and discovered I own David Copperfield so that might be my easy choice for a Dickens. Magic Mountain is also on my possible hit list. At this point, the difficult bit might be narrowing the field! All the books suggested sound good and I haven't read any of them.

I'd love to have company on the journey so I might just start a thread each time I begin one of the mammoth ones and if anyone would like to join me for the slog you'd all be more than welcome. I reckon it's easier to keep going when reading with friends :)

[Charles Darnay]

There are some on your list that I haven't read and would love to get around to....Gravity's Rainbow and Infinite Jest have been on my list for some time.

Winter's Tale was put out there....I add my recommendation for that one...a great book!

One title that I didn't notice (if you should be so adventurous) is "Clarissa" by Richardson. It is an 18th century novel written in the epistolary style, and for that reason it turns many away, but as far as getting into a story and getting to know a character - I place Clarissa Harlowe as second only to Leopold Bloom in my list of "characters who readers best get to know.

[TheFifthElement]

There are some on your list that I haven't read and would love to get around to....Gravity's Rainbow and Infinite Jest have been on my list for some time.

Winter's Tale was put out there....I add my recommendation for that one...a great book!

One title that I didn't notice (if you should be so adventurous) is "Clarissa" by Richardson. It is an 18th century novel written in the epistolary style, and for that reason it turns many away, but as far as getting into a story and getting to know a character - I place Clarissa Harlowe as second only to Leopold Bloom in my list of "characters who readers best get to know.

Hi Charles :) I hope you get chance to join some of the readings next year. Clarissa scares me, I'm not sure I'm ready for that one but it was in the back of my mind. Certainly your recommendation has made me think twice if not quite turning me to it. Looked up Winter's Tale and it sounds fantastic! It's now on my wish list, thanks :)

Just one to add to my own list: 1Q84 by Haruki Murakami. Books 1 & 2 arrived today. Very excited.

[TheFifthElement]

Another to add to the list (I think someone mentioned it) is Ulysses by James Joyce. I had a cycle down to the secondhand bookshop on Satruday and picked it up along with Middlemarch and The Old Curiosity Shop (and Old Goriot - it's too short for my challenge but it is a very sexy example of a book so I had to get it :D ).

My list so far (these are the ones I currently own):

The Tale of Genji - 1184 pages
Middlemarch - 838 pages
Mickelsson's Ghosts - 823 pages
Anna Karenina - 853 pages
War & Peace - 1215 pages
The Poisonwood Bible - 614 pages
The Corrections - 653 pages
The Women's Room - 636 pages
The Three Musketeers - 666 pages
Gravity's Rainbow - 902 pages
The Old Curiosity Shop - 674 pages
Ulysses - 742 pages

Actually I'm a bit scared to read Ulysses :(

[Charles Darnay]

Ulysses does take time, I find, and if you are only leaving yourself about a month for each - it will probably slow you down.

Your copy of Old Curiosity Shop is over 100 pages longer than mine....curious.

[TheFifthElement]

Maybe I'll leave Ulysses until last.

I'd imagine there is some variation in page numbering depending on font size and layout and those sorts of things, though 100 pages seems an awfully big margin of error...

[Rores28]

I'm in the process of reading anna karenina right now.. about 20 chapters in I think... its very good so far.

[Desolation]

This thread has inspired me to start reading my "Monsters."

I'm going to start with the new P&V translation of Doctor Zhivago, and then from there it's Gravity's Rainbow, Invisible Man, Light in August, Ulysses, and Proust.

I think that longer novels go down best in the winter. I'm not sure why.

[Varenne Rodin]

I just put Count of Monte Cristo on my kindle, so I'll be reading that.

[stuntpickle]

If you want to read "monsters" and are planning to read Dickens, the proper choice has to be Bleak House, which weighs in at over 1,000 pages.

And I'm surprised no one has mentioned that portly masterpiece Tom Jones, around 1,400 pages.

Edit: I just checked my editions of Bleak House and Tom Jones and they are only 800 and 900 pages, respectively. I guess they just felt a lot longer.

[TheFifthElement]

I'm really glad this thread has inspire some people to pick up a weightier (if only in kgs) novel. Desolation - I agree, winter feels like the right time for digging in to a nice thick book. Will you start a thread when you start reading? In Search of Lost Time, Gravity's Rainbow and Ulysses are all on my radar.

Stuntpickle - thanks for the recommendation of Tom Jones - looks like an excellent read. I deliberately avoided Bleak House for my Dickens pick because I'm already familiar with the story and I wanted to read a Dickens I hadn't encountered already (the BBC has done a lot of Dickens adaptations). Did you enjoy Bleak House? I think I would still quite like to read it, all things considered.

[Desolation]

I'd love to read Gravity's Rainbow with you. That one's been taunting me from my shelf for two years now. I think that reading it with someone else would give me the boost I need to get through it.

How about whoever gets to it first lets the other one know? :cornut:

[sickboy]

this thread is also inspiring me to finally take on the monster that is gravity's rainbow.
but i only hope i don't have to take the whole of next year to read it.

[Big Dante]

Ooooo, this looks like barrels of fun.

Count me in.

[Uberzensch]

Les Miserables!

[aliengirl]

I think that longer novels go down best in the winter. I'm not sure why.

Quite right. BTW, I recently read 'Doctor Zhivago' and would strongly recommend it.

I'd like to join this challenge as some of the books on your TBR list are same as mine. I've been planning to read The Tale of Genji, Ulysses, Les Miserables and Don Quixote for a long time but somehow could never bring it off. It would be fun to read these mammoths with others.

Right now I'm reading 'The Pickwick Papers'(801 pages) and am already half way through. Its really a great read! You may like to include it in your list if you wish to read sth by Dickens.

[Rores28]

If you want to read "monsters" and are planning to read Dickens, the proper choice has to be Bleak House, which weighs in at over 1,000 pages.

And I'm surprised no one has mentioned that portly masterpiece Tom Jones, around 1,400 pages.

Edit: I just checked my editions of Bleak House and Tom Jones and they are only 800 and 900 pages, respectively. I guess they just felt a lot longer.

That's what she said. HI OOOOOOO!

[hawthorns]

I think it's obvious by my avatar which one I'm going to recommend :smile5:. No need to tackle the whole thing either, as Swann's Way felt like a standalone (over 600 pgs too as I recall). My only regret was not knowing A LOT more about French literature, artwork, plays, poetry, and music before reading ROTP; He references them extensively in metaphors.

Cheers

[kevinthediltz]

East of Eden by Steinbeck (just over 600 pages)

I ran downstairs to check the page count on this one, only to find that she beat me to it.

The Brothers Karamazov also popped into my head, as well as many other heads, it seems.

[CarpeNixta]

sounds very interesting, I'll try to read them for 2012 too

[PabloQ]

I have a list of "to be read"s. I keep adding to it all the time, but the 3 that I have that qualify as "monsters" for 2012 are:
The Brothers Karamazov
Tom Jones
Little Dorrit
among several others.

[hawthorns]

Not a monster (about 700 pgs), but I'd highly recommend this one if you want an adventure book that'll blow your hair back:

http://ec1.images-amazon.com/images/P/0143039385.01._SS500_SCLZZZZZZZ_V1118154012_.jpg

[TheFifthElement]

Thanks for all the suggestions everyone, and it's nice to see a few more people wanting to try out the 'monsters' next year. I just read 1Q84 by Haruki Murakami which is over 1000 pages long (but could have been rather shorter) and didn't find that too difficult, but I'm guessing it's not quite as challenging a read as, say, Ulysses or War & Peace. Still, a positive start even though I'm not really technically starting yet.

Roll on 01/01/12 and The Tale of Gengi :)

[Voivod30]

Demons (or in other translations: The Possessed)
An American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser (just over 600 pages)

I just finished reading this a couple of months ago. It's quite depressing but I was extremely immersed in it just the same during the period of time when I was reading the novel. I haven't read any thing else by Dreiser but yeah I definitely second this suggestion. I've had a hard time reading long novels the past couple of years. I think this is a good thing to do in the new year so I suppose I'll take this challenge on as well, once I finish the current book that I'm reading. A few of the novels I'm considering are as follows: Les Miserables, Bleak House (Dickens), War and Peace, The Jewel In The Crown (and the other books in the series by Paul Scott), The Rainbow (D.H. Lawrence), Middlemarch, and of course the epitome of long fiction Finnegan's Wake etc..

[jake21221]

I just started Infinite Jest. I'm 170-ish pages into it and enjoying it very much. Im over that initial hump where Wallace throws about 10 characters at you and doesn't bother to explain what he's writing about, and am into the story now. Still though I've got a packet of post-its to mark things I think will be important. (so far used about 10) Along with 3 bookmarks one to keep track of my place in the book, one to keep track of the story chronologically and the other to keep track of where I am in the footnotes. (There are so many footnotes, sometimes a single footnote can go on for pages.) While it's a lot of work it's the kind of reading I like best, you immerse yourself in it better and you carefully study each word and by the time I'm done with it I feel like I'll know these characters like I know my family.

Also thanks to a thing on my e-reader I get public domain books for free! So I have Anna Karenina, Ulysses, Crime and Punishment and The Count of Monte Cristo. None of these are really calling my name but I am vaguely interested in Ulysses. With classics like these I read bits of them before I sink into the story. I did this with Don Quixote and that became one of my favourite books so I'm wondering if any of these will grab me like that book.

[PabloQ]

Actually, my 10 books on the list for this year are predetermined. They aren't driven by page count, but as I have stated, it gives me much to look forward to. Here are the next ten:
The Duke's Children Anthony Trollope
Germinal Emile Zola
Great Expectations Charles Dickens
The Brothers Karamazov Fyodor Dostoyevski
It Can't Happen Here Sinclair Lewis
The Naked and the Dead Norman Mailer
The Mayor of Casterbridge Thomas Hardy
Robinson Crusoe Daniel Defoe
Tom Jones Henry Fielding
Little Dorrit Dickens
Seems like a lot, but I'm looking forward to it. I'll be interested to see some of the comments on this string to see about reprioritizing my list. There's plenty on the list to move around.

[Calidore]

Of the stuff mentioned, I've got Les Miz, Moby Dick, and the two big Tolstoys on the to-read shelf, along with Neal Stephenson's huge Baroque trilogy, which hasn't been mentioned but would also fit this topic. I have Genji and the Paul Scott quartet in storage, meaning hopefully someday. I've read and can heartily recommend Dumas' complete Musketeers trilogy and Monte Cristo. I gave up on Don Quixote and Winter's Tale: the former because the humor was too broad and the situations too repetitive, and the latter because the writing was too precious, as if the author was too much in love with his own writing.

I'm currently reading a mammoth sci-fi trilogy: Night's Dawn by Peter F. Hamilton. Each of the three volumes is over 1000 pages. Despite the length, it's quite the page-turner. Next will be Alexandre Dumas' gigantic Marie Antoinette series, with books 2 & 3 roughly 800-1000 pages and books 1 & 4 running 1500-2000 each (in the unabridged editions). I'd meant to start that concurrently with the Night's Dawn trilogy, but both have so many characters that I'd never be able to keep them straight.

[JBI]

Read The Plum in the golden Vase. It is long (something around 2000 pages) but the most interesting book you will ever read in your life, I guarantee it.

[Desolation]

For my 2012 reading theme, I'm trying to decide between Monsters, Re-Reads, or the inevitable Whatever-the-Hell-I-Want. All I know for sure is that I would like to read a lot of Beckett, at least one volume of Proust, some Pynchon (I made a promise about Gravity's Rainbow, and I plan to keep it), Infinite Jest, and the greater deal of my currently unread books sitting on the shelf.

[Love_Aud]

Last year I made a list of 200 books I wanted to read for the year. I only read like 50 of them. So, this year, I'll just try and knock out 50 more!

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

Read The Plum in the golden Vase. It is long (something around 2000 pages) but the most interesting book you will ever read in your life, I guarantee it.

That's quite a gyrate.

[qimissung]

What about The Grapes of Wrath? I thought it was pretty long.

[TheFifthElement]

Thanks for the recommendations everyone :) JBI The Plum in the Golden Vase sounds really interesting, thanks. I'm just balking at the cost of it - over here it's about £25 per volume and comes in 5 volumes and the 5th isn't available yet. So I might have to do that one piecemeal and but I'm definitely interested in reading it.

Qimi I do own a copy of The Grapes of Wrath which weighs in at a mere 528 pages, so long but not quite long enough for my challenge. Actually I'm not sure if I've ever read it. Maybe I'll have to have a 'classic novels I've never read but think I should have' challenge next year. There'd be a lot on it :D

[LadyLuck]

Qimi I do own a copy of The Grapes of Wrath which weighs in at a mere 528 pages, so long but not quite long enough for my challenge. Actually I'm not sure if I've ever read it. Maybe I'll have to have a 'classic novels I've never read but think I should have' challenge next year. There'd be a lot on it :D

Perhaps I should make a list of "classic novels I've read but wish I hadn't". The Grapes of Wrath is on that list for me. There is an entire chapter about dirt and a turtle. Maybe it would make more impact now though. I likely need to give some of them a try again.

[DieterM]

Perhaps I should make a list of "classic novels I've read but wish I hadn't". The Grapes of Wrath is on that list for me. There is an entire chapter about dirt and a turtle. Maybe it would make more impact now though. I likely need to give some of them a try again.

Lol, LadyLuck, I just wanted to reply something along these lines when I stumbled upon your post.
I'd strongly second Thomas Mann "Magic Mountain", but Mann has written an even longer book "Joseph and his Brothers" (amazon announces it with 1,492 pages). I've read the "Magic Mountain" when I was 16 (had quite a long Mann-period back then) and have re-read it several times ever since because it's quite a complex novel, even though nothing much is really going on in terms of action. I've always liked it.

But do try "Joseph and his Brothers". If only to let me know if you find it as tedious as I did. I started at least ten times, and after let's say 400 pages or so of "Joseph's father is snoring next to a well" (I mean, there can only be said or written so much about that, no?), I've always given up.

[taintedlove]

I just bought Wally Lamb's I Know This Much Is True. Probably won't have time to read it until the summer, but I'm SO looking forward to it because the story sounds fantastic and it's gotten great reviews on Amazon and Barnes & Noble. My copy is 897 pages.

[jake21221]

So far my monsters list only includes:

Ulysses- James Joyce
Count of Monte Cristo- Dumas
Gravity's Rainbow- Thomas Pynchon

Not that many but Im also in the middle of Infinite Jest so I can count that.

[TheFifthElement]

Okay, maybe I won't read The Grapes of Wrath, though I do like turtles, and dirt ;)

jake21221 I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on Infinite Jest as that's a title I'd quite like to read this year. That being said, I read The Broom of the System a while ago and hated it.

To add to my own list (damn you charity shops!):

Kristin Lavransdatter by Sigrid Undset
2666 by Robert Bolano (I think someone already recommended this anyway) and
War of the End of the World by Mario Vargas Llosa

like I haven't got enough to read :D


But do try "Joseph and his Brothers". If only to let me know if you find it as tedious as I did. I started at least ten times, and after let's say 400 pages or so of "Joseph's father is snoring next to a well" (I mean, there can only be said or written so much about that, no?), I've always given up.
You're not selling it Dieter! I'll take your recommendation of Magic Mountain though. It's creeping higher up my 'to read' list. Have you read Buddenbrooks? Is that any good? I'm tempted by that one too.

[DieterM]

Oh yes, absolutely, Buddenbrooks is a fantastic read! Anyway, Mann was a great writer, and I think Buddenbrooks is the easiest of his books.

[Desolation]

I think I've settled on my 2012 theme. Experimental/Post-Modern Lit.

My list:
Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace
Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon
White Noise by Don DeLillo
The Castle by Franz Kafka
Absalom, Absalom! by William Faulkner
Rings of Saturn by WB Sebald
Whatever I can get my hands on by Samuel Beckett
And culminating with...
Ulysses by James Joyce

[qimissung]

Perhaps I should make a list of "classic novels I've read but wish I hadn't". The Grapes of Wrath is on that list for me. There is an entire chapter about dirt and a turtle. Maybe it would make more impact now though. I likely need to give some of them a try again.

It's not that he writes about dirt and a turtle, LadyLuck-it's what he does with the dirt and a turtle. :D

So, it stays on my list, even if it's a teensy bit too short to be "mammoth." It's about the dust bowl, after all, and Oklahoma, the only state in the union to inspire a Broadway musical.

[TheFifthElement]

It's not that he writes about dirt and a turtle, LadyLuck-it's what he does with the dirt and a turtle. :D

So, it stays on my list, even if it's a teensy bit too short to be "mammoth." It's about the dust bowl, after all, and Oklahoma, the only state in the union to inspire a Broadway musical.

Qimi, you'll have to let me know what you think of it. It's one of those (many) books I've been 'getting around to' for quite some time now.

[KCurtis]

Qimi, you'll have to let me know what you think of it. It's one of those (many) books I've been 'getting around to' for quite some time now.
I am planning on reading this book after I finish Jane Eyre. I love Steinbeck.

[jake21221]

jake21221 I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on Infinite Jest as that's a title I'd quite like to read this year. That being said, I read The Broom of the System a while ago and hated it.


Well Im about 300 pages away from the end, and I honestly am enjoying it quite a bit. It's hard to get into at the start when he's introducing all the characters but what I did was whenever I finished a section or the book got too obtuse or dense I put it down and thought about what I'd just read. Some scenes are very dull but the majority of them are quite engrossing and sometimes his descriptions of things are so gorgeous I have to re-read them. Other times I have to re-read them due to my own idiocy but thats another matter. There are many end-notes a lot of which I've found superfluous and have pretty much given up on them.

I can't comment on any of Wallace's other writing as I've not read anything else by him but I did impulse buy The Pale King his unfinished novel because I enjoyed Infinite Jest so much. I did hear Wallace comment on The Broom of the System saying "It seems like it was written by a smart 14 year old." So I don't think he had much love for it either.

[Mr.lucifer]

I willl try to read 100 novels.

[rootinghog]

One of my favorite quotations about literature is the idea that "great books teach you how read them." I've always thought this especially holds true for the great, mammoth works-- certainly for Ulysses, Don Quixote, Gravity's Rainbow, Infinite Jest, Moby-Dick, 2666.... I think this is why I've always been more compelled by the 600+ books; I sometimes get the feeling, upon finishing a shorter book, that I was still learning how to read it, and never had a chance to really grasp the full picture. So I admire your 2012 reading list!

I'll be interested to see how you progress with Tale of Genji. I gave it a shot last year, and didn't make it much beyond a hundred pages, partly due to the utterly foreign conventions of the place and time, and partly due to its massive size and awkwardness on my subway commute. Best of luck!-- but bear in mind that most of these books aren't meant to be read in a month, and certain ones (Infinite Jest, Ulysses, Gravity's Rainbow) would be nearly impossible to engage with on a meaningful level in such a short time-frame, unless you're of the read/eat/sleep persuasion.

[qimissung]

I'm really glad you said that. I am reading The Tale of Genji, and enjoying it, but it's going to take me awhile to finish, and that's OK with me. Genji is an interesting character. I find it quite fascinating to think of this long ago, well-bred Japanese widow writing the first novel ever, and what a book it is!

[elvira]

I don't think Forsyte Saga was mentioned. And that's a very long read. There's also Thakeray's Vanity Fair, an old favourite of mine. And I didn't see David Cooperfield on the Dickens list. All very pleasant passtimes.

[Sancho Panza]

How about something gothic in the shape of the Gormenghast Trilogy by Mervyn Peake. That is a read that will stay with you for the rest of your life and has some of the best characters committed to paper.

[TheFifthElement]

I'll be interested to see how you progress with Tale of Genji. I gave it a shot last year, and didn't make it much beyond a hundred pages, partly due to the utterly foreign conventions of the place and time, and partly due to its massive size and awkwardness on my subway commute. Best of luck!-- but bear in mind that most of these books aren't meant to be read in a month, and certain ones (Infinite Jest, Ulysses, Gravity's Rainbow) would be nearly impossible to engage with on a meaningful level in such a short time-frame, unless you're of the read/eat/sleep persuasion.

Hi rootinghog :) Thanks for your comments. I understand what you mean about these longer books not necessarily being do-able in a month. I guess I'll see how I get on. In any books, long or short, there are differences in their density. So, for example, it took me a long(ish) time to read Tess of the D-Urbervilles last year, which is about 350 pages long but very dense, but probably the same amount of time to read 1Q84 which is significantly longer but a bit more lightweight. So I suspect certain books will be more difficult to absorb (say Infinite Jest, Ulysses) than others (The Old Curiosity Shop, for example, or even The Tale of Genji). I do get a lot of reading time, however, thanks to my commute which gives me about 1hr 40 minutes reading time each day.

Genji, well, what an excellent read. I thoroughly enjoyed it. I've read a fair amount of Japanese literature so I have a bit of a grounding though I doubt it prepared me that well for the cultural differences. That being said, it is well rooted in romance and there's a sadness about it, a sense of things becoming less bright, less 'shining'. I think the translation will have an impact on your reading experience. I picked the Seidensticker translation after reading examples from each of the three main translations and deciding which one 'flowed' best for me (I don't know if it's the most accurate, but for me it was the most readable). I think that helps. It had good notes too, regarding the origins of the poetics which appear throughout the book. Overall it was an excellent read. One to recommend.

Not sure what I'm moving on to next. The book club is reading Midnight's Children so that's a distinct possibility, though for some reason I really, really want to read The Magic Mountain so we'll see. Firstly, however, I'm going to read some of the short stuff :D

So, mammoth read progress so far:
1. The Tale of Genji - 1169 pages

[irinmisfit92]

Independent People, which was recommended by the people in the forum when I made a post about Scandinavian authors. It was a good piece, no doubt, but way too long for me XD I barely finished one-tenth of the book. I will definitely try to finish it this year, though.

Not only Les Miserables, but Hunchback of Notre Dame. I hate the fact that Victor Hugo's stories just HAS to be so long. Urgh! He's a really good writer but seriously, I want shorter versions which are still literary! T.T

[rootinghog]

Congratulations on finishing the first mammoth!:willy_nilly:That just may inspire me to pick up Genji later this year. And thanks for Seidensticker recommendation-- I'd tried Royall Tyler's, which is said to be "accurate to a fault" (with a burdensome amount of footnotes and additional materials). For my part, I now feel motivated to spend my year communing with the unknown monsters on my bookshelves-- Mason & Dixon, Something Happened, From Here to Eternity, Doctor Zhivago, Winter's Tale, Petersburg, Demons, Bleak House, Genji... but I'll certainly drop in for discussions of Don Quixote, Infinite Jest, Gravity's Rainbow, and Ulysses, which make up some of my all-time favorites.

Also: I wouldn't worry about the fact that you weren't too fond of Broom of the System-- as someone who has read (and adores) Infinite Jest, The Pale King, and most of DFW's non-fiction, I will admit that I couldn't finish that novel, as I found the tone of self-conscious show-offiness pretty insufferable. He cast that off early in his career, though, and IJ is a serious and mature (and very fun) work, although it does require patience and dedication. I look forward to discussing it with everyone!

[TheFifthElement]

February update:
1. The Tale of Genji - 1169 pages
2. Midnight's Children - 647 pages

Phew!

[Tallulah]

Okay, you have inspired me! I've had Les Miserables and Tom Jones on my shelves for a couple years now. Time to start in on them...

[TheFifthElement]

So, I'm struggling to decide what to read for March. Part of me would like to read Middlemarch, as it's nearly the middle of March and it seems appropriate, but mainly I don't want to read something that long because, well, I'm just too tempted to read Spring Snow by Mishima and Hopscotch by Julio Cortazar and they're both pretty long books if not long enough to meet my mammoth challenge.

Hmm. Maybe I'll read The Old Curiosity Shop. Or The Poisonwood Bible. Any Poisonwood Biblers out there who'd like to join me?

[Sheebee49]

My challenge is to ready the 100 Books You Must Read Before You Die. I've started . . . not going from 1 to 100, but picking out what fits my mood at the time. I've heard Ulysses is quite the beast. I don't know if I have that mood or not!!

[Scheherazade]

The Poisonwood Bible. Any Poisonwood Biblers out there who'd like to join me?Tried to read that one twice... Third time might be the charm.

Is April too late for you, Fifth?

[TheFifthElement]

Is April too late for you, Fifth?

April sounds good to me Scher. I'll hang on to it until then.

Still not sure what to read in March :sosp:

[Desolation]

I'm starting Gravity's Rainbow on Monday, if you're still interested in doing a group reading.

[Scheherazade]

April sounds good to me Scher. I'll hang on to it until then.

Still not sure what to read in March :sosp:A Suitable Boy. Simply loved it.

I am getting a copy of Poinsonwood ready for April!

[Prince Smiles]

Okay, you have inspired me! I've had Les Miserables and Tom Jones on my shelves for a couple years now. Time to start in on them...

I am reading Tom Jones at the moment and have 300 pages left to go.

I had been meaning to read this book for a long time as well.

Tom Jones is written in the picaresque style and was a big influence on Dickens's earlier novels.

As for Le Mis, it's Hugo's masterpiece and should be required reading for everyone.

Get stuck into those weighty tomes and you will be surprised how quickly you can make a dent on them.

Fifth Element, how about Proust's 'Remembrance of Things Past' ?
Over 3,000 pages of 'action packed' reading! :rofl:
Of all the books I have read, finishing the final volume of this work has afforded me the most feeling of accomplishment. I even have pictures of myself with the books:
http://i223.photobucket.com/albums/dd74/BigRedPaul/Picture008-3.jpg

[TheFifthElement]

Hi Prince Smiles :) welcome to the forums. That's such a cool picture - is that your library? If so, I'm very, very, very jealous.

I've got Proust on my list. I've got volumes 1-3 sitting on my shelves and I keep telling myself, come autumn, I'm going to do it. Honest :)

So, having read them all, aside from the achievement of actually doing it, is it a rewarding read?

[Prince Smiles]

FifthElement,
thanks for the welcome.


So, having read them all, aside from the achievement of actually doing it, is it a rewarding read?


That is a good question! It was a slog to say the least.

Put it this way, I started reading it with a great friend of mine. She is an Oxford Uni double masters graduate and used to dealing with heavy classic Greek texts. She gave up at about half way through Guermantes Way and said that I was insane to persist in such fashion!:rofl:

The problem with the book is that the protagonist, Marcel lacks such conviction and get up and go. It takes a lot of patience to deal with him. If you combined Mildred (Of Human Bondage) with Uriah Heep (D. Copperfield), although Marcel has a totally different character from those two, the combined degree of infuriation is generated. (If you see what I mean)

The book as an insight into salon society and French history , The Dreyfus Affair and so forth is interesting.

Everyone is familiar with the Madeleine Cake scene because it is in the first volume, but further on in another volume there is a scene describing a water lilly being pushed back and forth in a stream. It is just exquisitely written.
Little gems like that abound.

Why did I read it? Well, to paraphrase George Mallory, ‘because it has been printed.’

If you are going to tackle the work in Autumn, you have a good few months to prepare.

How about Alexandre Dumas: ‘The Count of Monte Cristo’ in the meantime? My Penguin Classic edition runs a cool 1078 pages. It is the only 1000 page + novel that I have read three times and I plan to read it again in the near future. If you haven’t read the tale of Edmond Dantes, then I would say it’s a good starter for 1,000.

With regards to the library in my pic it’s photo-shopped! Only kidding, I wish it was my library, too. Actually it is a school library and hardly a soul uses it, so I sequester myself in there on occasion.

Thank you again for the welcome to the forum and it’s nice to make your acquaintance.

Best wishes,

P. Smiles

[Tallulah]

Whew! I finally finished Les Miserables! Yay! :hurray:

It was really good. When I started it, I thought it was slow but once I got past the Bishop of Digne stuff it started to pick up. There were some other parts that I thought bogged down the story a little bit (did I really need that much info on the sewer system?) but overall it was a great book.

I have a few more "big" books I want to read but I need to take a break and read some easy stuff.

Oh, and someone mentioned Middlemarch. I just read that last year and thought it was great. Good luck!

[Jair]

Anyone trying The World According to Garg?

[TheFifthElement]

I'll admit, I am now struggling. I think I've achieved some sort of reading burnout that started with Cortazar's Hopscotch and hasn't really left me since. So I started The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann and have had to put it to one side and read Battle Royale instead which is actually 600+ pages long but kind of cheaty because it's 'easy' to read (I say easy to read but not an easy read because it is incredibly gruesome).

Falling behind target :(

[Tallulah]

I'll admit, I am now struggling. I think I've achieved some sort of reading burnout that started with Cortazar's Hopscotch and hasn't really left me since. So I started The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann and have had to put it to one side and read Battle Royale instead which is actually 600+ pages long but kind of cheaty because it's 'easy' to read (I say easy to read but not an easy read because it is incredibly gruesome).

Falling behind target :(

I know what you mean. I get like that at times. Usually after making myself complete a book that I don't really like. For some reason, I just can't let myself stop reading. I soldier my way through it and then I just don't want to read for a while! Maybe it would be better if I just stopped reading a book that doesn't interest me...

Buddenbrooks is next on my list. I haven't read anything by Thomas Mann yet. It will count towards this challenge and the 12 new authors challenge :thumbs_up

[TheFifthElement]

March update
1. The Tale of Genji - 1169 pages
2. Midnight's Children - 647 pages
3. Battle Royale - 614 pages

I feel like I cheated though. Must try harder this month.

[TheFifthElement]

So for April I will be reading The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver. If anyone would like to join me, I've set up a thread to discuss the book here: http://www.online-literature.com/forums/showthread.php?p=1132456#post1132456

[TheFifthElement]

April update:

1. The Tale of Genji - 1169 pages
2. Midnight's Children - 647 pages
3. Battle Royale - 614 pages
4. The Poisonwood Bible - 616 pages

Slamdunk!

So, I have inadvertently started the Sea of Fertility tetralogy by Yukio Mishima and that's going to be my May read (all four of them...it may spill over). Anyone interested is more than welcome to join me. I'm starting with Spring Snow (obviously, as it's the first book).

Proust...oh that's still a way off :D

[TheFifthElement]

So I'm half way through Runaway Horses which is the second book in the Sea of Fertility tetralogy by Mishima, and I'm flagging. This one's a tough one. Any inspiration to push me through it anyone?

[TheFifthElement]

Getting a little ahead of myself (75 pages to go) but here is my May update:

1. The Tale of Genji by Murasaki Shikibu- 1169 pages
2. Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie- 647 pages
3. Battle Royale by Koushun Takami - 614 pages
4. The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver - 616 pages
5. The Sea of Fertility Tetralogy (Spring Snow, Runaway Horses, The Temple of Dawn, The Decay of the Angel) by Yukio Mishima - 1376 pages.

Phew - The Sea of Fertility Tetralogy was hard work (well it still kind of is as I haven't quite finished it) but it's given me some confidence on my lengthy reading skills. And I think its time I moved away from the Japanese and read something different so next month it'll be......

Kristen Lavransdatter by Sigrid Undset

anyone care to join me?

[rootinghog]

By some interesting twist of fate, I just happened to stumble across a copy of Kristin Lavransdatter on my local bookstore's dollar shelf. Are you still planning to read it for the month of June? If so, I'd be happy to discuss.

At about 100 pages in, I'm really warming up to it. I really enjoy Kristin's interactions with certain spiritual elders, like Brother Edvin or the "witch"-- although she's not at the age where she can fully understand what they teach, their wisdom does return to guide her through darker times in her life. Still, I can't say the cover (http://www.csmonitor.com/var/ezflow_site/storage/images/media/images/2010/0219/21910-pick.jpg/7419817-1-eng-US/21910-pick.jpg_full_600.jpg) of my edition is doing great things for my street cred on the NYC subways.

[TheFifthElement]

rootinghog that's excellent news! And I love the cover, it's so funny! Mine is slightly more austere (and a bit more boring) http://www.amazon.co.uk/Kristin-Lavransdatter-Penguin-Classics-Sigrid/dp/0143039164/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1339489740&sr=1-1

I'm definitely wanting to read Kristen this month; I'm just waiting until there's more room in my bag (as it's a beast!) so probably it'll be next week. I'm back in work now, and it takes about a week before I give up bringing things home and taking them back undone the next day. I'll start a separate thread for it. I'd love to hear what you think.

Just a question - do you have all three books? It's in three parts. Judging from your cover, you've got part 1.

[rootinghog]

Great! Just drop me a line once you've started up. It'll be interesting to compare translations- from what I can tell, mine is an older, more staid version, which I've grown to like but which can occasionally be indecipherable.

(And yes, I did nab all three similarly young-adult-fantasy-covered volumes from the dollar shelf, which has lessened bulkiness on the commute, if not embarrassment.)

[TheFifthElement]

Brilliant! I looked up the other covers and they are all equally beautiful. I hope you're a fast reader, otherwise your street cred will be suffering for a looooong time :D

I've set up the discussion thread here (http://www.online-literature.com/forums/showthread.php?t=69680); once I've finished Lolita, which I don't think will take too long, I'll make a start on Kristen and will bob you a message to let you know.

Looking forward to reading.

[Tallulah]

Whew! I finally finished Les Miserables! Yay! :hurray:

It was really good. When I started it, I thought it was slow but once I got past the Bishop of Digne stuff it started to pick up. There were some other parts that I thought bogged down the story a little bit (did I really need that much info on the sewer system?) but overall it was a great book.

I have a few more "big" books I want to read but I need to take a break and read some easy stuff.

Oh, and someone mentioned Middlemarch. I just read that last year and thought it was great. Good luck!

I finished Buddenbrooks a few weeks ago. It was really great. Loved the characters. Now I just have Don Quixote and Tom Jones to finish...

[wreade1872]

Read the 'Faerie Queen Vol1' as part of my 'stuff referenced in the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen comics' reading list. Technically a poem rather than novel and not sure how long it was but it was LONG. Good too, surprising amount of violence, filth and action especially for a christian allegory.

Just finishing Scoop and Doctor Sax which are not very long but another monster on the horizon 'Forever Amber by Kathleen Winsor' will be my next read, 972 pages.

[TheFifthElement]

Tallulah - congrats on finishing Buddenbrooks. I tried reading The Magic Mountain by Mann a couple of months ago and struggled. I'll return to it at some point.

wreade1872 I think the Faerie Queen counts as a long read. It's certainly a long poem anyway :D

So rootinghog I'm in! Finished Lolita this pm and starting on Kristen Lavransdatter in the morning. How are you getting along with it?

[rootinghog]

Glad to hear it! It should be interesting to transition from a book as male-centric and modern as Lolita to the medieval female perspective of Kristin. I'm about 1/3 of the way through-- I'll post some (non-specific) thoughts on my progress on your K.L. thread.

[TheFifthElement]

June update

1. The Tale of Genji by Murasaki Shikibu- 1169 pages
2. Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie- 647 pages
3. Battle Royale by Koushun Takami - 614 pages
4. The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver - 616 pages
5. The Sea of Fertility Tetralogy (Spring Snow, Runaway Horses, The Temple of Dawn, The Decay of the Angel) by Yukio Mishima - 1376 pages.
6. Kristin Lavransdatter by Sigrid Undset - 1125 pages

At this stage in proceedings, I think I might need to take a little break. I don't think I have the time to manage a full mammoth novel in July. I've also noticed, not that it comes as a great surprise, that there are significant differences in quality in these longer books, and this affects reading time. Battle Royale, for example, took a fairly short period of time to read whereas Kristin Lavransdatter has taken me some time to get through. It's been very enjoyable though, and I'm looking forward to picking up the challenge again in August.

[TheFifthElement]

So I've had a much longer break than planned, largely down to the twin distractions of writing a novel ansd starting my degree. It's been a busy year. October update...

1. The Tale of Genji by Murasaki Shikibu- 1169 pages
2. Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie- 647 pages
3. Battle Royale by Koushun Takami - 614 pages
4. The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver - 616 pages
5. The Sea of Fertility Tetralogy (Spring Snow, Runaway Horses, The Temple of Dawn, The Decay of the Angel) by Yukio Mishima - 1376 pages.
6. Kristin Lavransdatter by Sigrid Undset - 1125 pages
7. His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman - 1088 pages

I feel like I've cheated a little reading a kids' book as my latest offering, but it was excellent and very long, so perhaps only a little cheat.

Now, maybe I ought to get on and finish Middlemarch :D

[TheFifthElement]

1. The Tale of Genji by Murasaki Shikibu- 1169 pages
2. Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie- 647 pages
3. Battle Royale by Koushun Takami - 614 pages
4. The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver - 616 pages
5. The Sea of Fertility Tetralogy (Spring Snow, Runaway Horses, The Temple of Dawn, The Decay of the Angel) by Yukio Mishima - 1376 pages.
6. Kristin Lavransdatter by Sigrid Undset - 1125 pages
7. His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman - 1088 pages
8. Middlemarch by George Eliot - 864 pages

So I finished 3/4 of the challenge. Not a bad result, overall :D