Saturday, May 25, 2013

My 2013 Big Book Summer!

Image(s): FreeDigitalPhotos.net

I have just announced the second year of my challenge, Big Book Summer Challenge, so I guess I should be the first to sign up!

I really enjoyed tackling some big books the last few summers, and I'm looking forward to doing it again and finally reading some of these bricks that have been collecting dust on my shelf (NOTE: for this challenge, a Big Book is defined as anything with more than 400 pages).

I don't know if I will get to all of these, but I like to have some options to choose from.  These are all currently on my shelves, waiting patiently to be read:
  • The Book Thief by Markus Zusak, 552 pages
  • The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness, 479 pages
  • Dragonfly in Amber by Diana Gabaldon, 743 pages
  • Defending Jacob by William Landay, 421 pages
  • The Twelve by Justin Cronin, 564 pages
    The first two are YA novels - I like to alternate between grown-up books and kids/teen books. I've actually read The Book Thief before, but my online family book group is discussing it soon, so I thought I'd re-read it. The rest are all books I've been meaning to read for a while. It was so hard to choose! I have many more big books on my shelves, but I also have 3 more book group reads coming up in June before my book groups take a break for the summer. We'll see how many of these I get to!

    How about you?  Are you up for tackling a Big Book (or two) this summer?  Join me and sign up for the Big Book Summer Challenge!


    6 comments:

    1. Defending Jacob was a good one -- enjoy.

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    2. Kate Green4:02 PM

      I do not have a blog, but am interested in your Big Book challenge. I have The Book Thief on my TBR forever and would like to read it this summer. I have to look through my piles and see what else I have that qualifies. I had started Defending Jacob, but had to put it down.

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    3. Consider yourself a part of the challenge, Kate! Glad to have you join in. I just finished The Book Thief last night - my second time reading it. Such an amazing book!

      If you decide to read another big book after that, just stop by and leave another comment!

      Sue

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    4. I LOVE The Book Thief. I think this book should be in schools' summer reading lists, at the very least. But really, it should be required reading during the year.

      I hope you like Dragonfly in Amber. It's one of my favorites in the series, but not of the top 3 - top 5 maybe top 4. It's very good, but a bit harder to get through in some sections.

      Have fun with this challenge.

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    5. Sue: Somehow I missed your post on the Big Book Challenge. I want to join in! I read The Twelve last month and loved it. I read it on the beach. Sat there all day doing nothing but reading that book. About midafternoon this guy walked by and said "The Twelve must be a very good book."

      Maybe this summer I'll get The Book Thief and A Breath of Snow and Ashes (where I'm at on the Outlander series) finished. Other than that, I'm just going to aim for as many big books as possible - same as last year.

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    6. Hi, Melissa -

      Glad to see you want to join in! Sounds like you already have a good start! Just write a brief post on your blog to join the challenge and leave the link here:

      http://bookbybook.blogspot.com/p/2013-big-book-summer-challenge.html

      There is also a link list there for reviews of Big Books, so add yours in!

      Sue

      ReplyDelete