Big Book Summer Challenge

Summertime and the livin' is easy

Fish are jumpin' and the cotton is high

Oh, your daddy's rich and your ma is good lookin'

So hush, little baby, don't you cry

Time to bring out the big books because summer isn't summer without the Big Book Summer Challenge, hosted by Sue at Book by Book.

I'm looking at some vacation days, lazing around, reading me some good big books.

Target books:

• Black Diamonds: The Downfall of an Aristocratic Dynasty and the Fifty Years that Changed England, by Catherine Bailey (non-fiction, 451 pages) - strongly recommended by my brother Mark and sister Frances
• Winter King: Henry VII and the Dawn of Tudor England, by Thomas Penn (non-fiction, 448 pages) - received at Xmas, eager to read
• Into the Wilderness, by Sara Donati (fiction, 876 pages) - literally been on my shelf for a decade!
• Lionheart, by Sharon Kay Penman (fiction, 684 pages) - next in the Plantagenet series

It turns out that I have a number of books that I am also planning on reading this summer that are just shy of the 400 page mark. But no matter, reading isn't a competitive sport and this challenge simply inspires me to take a second look at my TBR shelf and pick a couple that do fit that bill that I was planning on reading at some point!

Hope you all have a safe and bookish summer. Now, if it would only get warm. We had a cool Spring in Colorado, and now I am in Maine, wearing a fleece every day and hoping to see the sun.

Big Book Summer Challenge - checkpoint

When I signed up for the Big Book Challenge earlier in the summer, I figured that Diana Gabaldon's latest, Written in My Heart's Own Blood, would be the only book that I read this summer that would qualify (i.e., >400 pages).

Boy was I ever wrong!

I'm 633 pages into the 822 pages of Written in My Heart's Own Blood, and loving it.  I'm glad I'm reading it slowly--just one section per week.  This way I have time to enjoy the story and characters and all the details that Gabaldon so painstakingly adds that makes her fictional world seem so real.

I'm also 324 pages into the 601 pages that is John Steinbeck's East of Eden.  Man, how I love this book.  I haven't read it in over 30 years and it is simply wonderful.  I just read the "timshel" section of the book where Lee expounds on the Cain and Abel story and the importance of the phrase "thou mayest."  I can't wait to visit Steinbeck country in September when I go out to visit my daughter in San Francisco.  In addition to Monterey, I'm planning on visiting Salinas and maybe King City when we go to Pinnacles National Park (hoping to see some California Condors)

I read all 576 pages of Donna Tartt's The Secret History, and reviewed it here.  I was half-way through with it before I realized it was an official "big book."

Beatriz Williams' A Hundred Summers qualified as a "big book" with 432 pages.  I reviewed it here.

Daughter of the Forest, by Juliet Marillier, was my first "big book" of the season, clocking in at 560 pages.  I read it in June with the GoodReads TuesBookTalk Read-a-Longs.  I cannot believe I never got around to reviewing it as I did enjoy it and am looking forward to reading the next book in this very interesting series.

Since I'm an English major and my mantra is "you do the math," I got out my calculator to discover that I have read 2525 pages in my Big Book Challenge so far this summer, and that's not counting the books I read that didn't have the page count required.

So yeah, I guess I like to read.

Hope you're all have a wonderful summer, reading what makes you happy, and enjoying life.

2014 Big Book Summer Challenge: Written in My Heart's Own Blood

I heard about the 2014 Big Book Summer Challenge on the Book by Book blog, and immediately thought that I should sign up for it in order to motivate me to start Vera Brittain's Testament of Youth.  And then I remembered that the next book I wanted to start with Written in My Heart's Own Blood, the latest (last?) in the Outlander series by Diana Gabaldon.

It's a remarkably easy challenge:

• Anything over 400 pages qualifies as a big book. - both Testament of Youth and the Gabaldon definitely qualify!
• The challenge runs from Memorial Day weekend through Labor Day weekend - I'm getting a late start but I won't let that slow me down.
• Choose one or two or however many big books you want as your goal.  - 1 is my goal, 2 is my stretch goal.
• Choose from what's on your shelves already or a big book you've been meaning to read for ages or anything that catches your eye in the library - technically both were on my shelf when I decided to do the challenge, though WimHoB just recently landed there :)
• Sign up on the links list below or on the 2014 Big Book Summer Challenge page.
• Write a post to kick things off - Voila!
• Write a post to wrap up at the end, listing the big books you read during the summer.
• You can write progress posts if you want to and/or reviews of the big books you've read...but you don't have to!  

I'm not much for the pool or beach so here's my image of ideal summer reading mode...