I
have taken part in this reading challenge since 2013. The moment I saw
that post, I know this was the most interesting challenge for me. I
signed up for the highest of the four levels "Mor-book-ly Obese" which
meant eight or more chunksters (books over 450 pages) of which three
must be 750 pages or more.
I
have carried on with that challenge without setting goals, I love big
books and I will always read some. And I am more than willing to tell my
friends about them.
If you are interested in the challenge, check out this link. They discontinued their challenge in 2015.
You can still find suggestions by page number, in case you can't find any chunksters yourself. 😉
Or you can check out my lists from the previous years (below), maybe you are interested in a couple of them.
I read in
2013: 38 chunky books, 13 of them chunksters
2014: 37 chunky books, 15 of them chunksters
2015: 26 chunky books, 8 of which chunksters
2016: 28 chunky books, 3 of which chunksters
2017: 35 chunky books, 6 of which chunksters
2018: 29 chunky books, 6 of which chunksters
2019: 20 chunky books, 7 of which chunksters
2020: 18 chunky books, 7 of which chunksters
2021: 24 chunky books, 10 of which chunksters
2022: 11 chunky books, 3 of which chunksters
2023: 12 chunky books, 3 of which chunksters
I will be posting the books I have read here:
(I add the German title, if available, for my German friends)
[I add my own translation of a foreign book title if it's not available in English.]
Kingsolver, Barbara "Demon Copperhead" (Demon Copperhead) - 2022 - 560 pages
Yates, Richard "Revolutionary Road" (Zeiten des Aufruhrs) - 1961 - 463 pages
Harris, Robert "Fatherland" (Vaterland) - 1992 - 560 pages
Hyde, Catherine Ryan "When I found you" (Als ich dich fand) - 2009 - 512 pages
Towles, Amor "A Gentleman in Moscow" (Ein Gentleman in Moskau) - 2016 - 462 pages
Melandri, Francesca "Alle, außer mir" (Sangue giusto) [Right Blood or Everyone but me] - 2017 - 608 pages
Verghese, Abraham "The Covenant of Water" (Die Träumenden von Madras) - 2023 - 796 pages
Garfield, Simon "To the Letter: A Curious History of Correspondence - A Celebration of the Lost Art of Letter Writing" (Briefe! Ein Buch über die Liebe in Worten, wundersame Postwege und den Mann, der sich selbst verschickte) - 2013 - 464 pages
Stedman, M L "The Light Between Oceans" (Das Licht zwischen den Meeren) - 2012 - 464 pages
Falcones, Ildefonso "Die Tränen der Welt" (El pintor de almas/The painter of souls) - 2019 - 704 pages
Evaristo, Bernhardine "Girl, Woman, Other" (Mädchen, Frau, etc.) - 2019 - 453 pages
Ivey, Eowyn "To The Bright Edge of the World" (Das Leuchten am Rand der Welt) - 2016 - 496 pages R
Follett, Ken "The Armour of Light" (Die Waffen des Lichts) - 2023 - 751 pages
Dickens, Charles "Nicholas Nickleby. The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby" (Nicholas Nickleby) - 1838/39 - 974 pages
Oates, Joyce Carol "Blonde" (Blond) - 2000 - 1,100 pages
I read 15 chunky books in 2024 of which 4 are considered a chunkster.
If you want to do this challenge or just check at the end of the year what category you are, here is the list:
The Chubby Chunkster - this option is for the readers who want to dabble in large tomes, but really doesn't want to commit to much more than that. FOUR Chunksters is all you need to finish this challenge.
The Plump Primer - this option is for the slightly heavier reader who wants to commit to SIX Chunksters over the next twelve months.
Do These Books Make my Butt Look Big? - this option is for the reader who can't resist bigger and bigger books and wants to commit to SIX
Chunksters from the following categories: 2 books which are between 450
- 550 pages in length; 2 books which are 551 - 750 pages in length; 2
books which are GREATER than 750 pages in length (for ideas, please
refer to the book suggestions page for some books which fit into these
categories).
Mor-book-ly Obese - This is for the truly out of control chunkster. For this level of challenge you must commit to EIGHT
or more Chunksters of which three tomes MUST be 750 pages or more. You
know you want to.....go on and give in to your cravings.
I've been having 'issues' with reading speed over the last 6+ months, so have been prioritising on shorter books to ensure I have at least *something* to review! This means that my largest read of the year (so far) is only 319pp and my overage over the last 3 years is 'only' 293pp. My highest page count, going all the way back to August 2021 was 690pp. Now that my reading speed seems to have recovered I'm intending to push my average up again & even hope to break the 700pp mark at some point. I certainly have a few books of that size gathering dust here ATM!
ReplyDeleteThanks for that, Kitten. I think we should read what we enjoy. If large books are too large atm, there are many good short ones. I just seem to enjoy them more when they take longer, one of the reasons why I read at least five books at any given moment.
ReplyDeleteMy average last year was 321 pages/book, the year before "only" 281 pages/book. My longest book last year was 1,057 pages but that was not the longest I ever read, in the last ten years, that was "Sarum" by Edward Rutherfurd with 1,376 pages.
As you can see, this year, my largest book is "Demon Copperhead", though I have read more with over 300 pages, but here, only books with more than 450 pages count.