Saturday, June 25, 2016

Really Big Books - NOVA this week (June, 25, 2016)



Observations from my weekly wanderings, usually in Northern Virginia (NOVA).

I finished War and Peace a week ago. It took me two months and change. Meanwhile, some of my fellow book bloggers read 4, or 5, or 6, or 10, or more books.

Ordinarily, I am quite fond of these bookish friends, but recently each time they post a book review, I feel certain they are mocking me.

To which I reply, ***raspberries***

This is a REALLY BIG BOOK (RBB). And what’s more – I’ve got more RBBs, ahead on my reading schedule. Some call them chunksters (somehow, that name makes me cringe a little), or tomes, or opus, but I am coining the acronym RBB.

Starting with Tom Jones (2 books back) and then among the next 10 books, I have the following RBBs.

TomJones – 346,000 words
War and Peace – 580,000 words
The Count of Monte Cristo – 460,000 words
Les Misérables – 655,000 words
The Fountainhead – 311,000 words
Atlas Shrugged – 645,000 words

Which is a rough equivalent of 30 regular sized books. So yeah, ***raspberries***

Oh and, I’m also reading through the Bible – 788,000 words.

Feeling a bit guilty about the raspberries now though ;-) Just tongue in cheek.

Oh by the way – interesting bit of coincidence. This wasn’t planned in my reading schedule, but The Count of Monte Cristo is almost like a sequel to War and Peace. Historically, CofMC follows W&P, and the historical person Napoleon plays a secondary, though significant role in each.


14 comments:

  1. Interesting side note on the relation between War & Peace and Count of Monte Cristo! I think book # doesn't matter at all. It's about the experience, not how many pages you read. :)

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  2. I didn't feel like The Fountainhead was an RBB -- it flew by pretty quickly. So... there's hope for you?

    That's a cool observation about W&P and Monte Cristo. Maybe if I promise myself the latter as a "carrot," I can get myself to finally read the former?

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    1. I alllllllllmost bought myself a copy at the bookstore this week, but ended up getting Moby Dick instead because it was a) cheaper, and b) prettier.

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    2. tsk tsk...as if judging a book by it's cover is not bad enough, you stooped to judging by price tag as well. But you made me LITERALLY LOL (more of a derisive snort really).

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    3. No wait...chortle actually. Derisive chortle.

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    4. Okay, chortle I can handle. A snort? We might've had to break up.

      Yeah, I know. But... MD was hardcover too, and they only had paperbacks of W&P.

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    5. OK...that saved you. My bookcase is more like a trophy case and I have to have hardcover.

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    6. I tend to upgrade books to hardcover if I really love them, or if I found them cheap. But I love too many books to buy only hardcover -- I don't have that much money or space!

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  3. Re-Reading The Count of Monte Cristo now...picked it up on a whim!May do a reverse time tale reading and re-read War and Peace after I finish Monte Cristo...sorely tempted!

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    1. I'm loving CofMC, but I knew I would. I'm anxious to see if my feelings at the end are much different than they were when I read it as a teen.

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    2. Funny...I read it the first time as a teen as well. But then I have re-read it a couple of time since then....and I still LOVE it! Look forward to your thoughts once you are done!

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  4. I really want to read War and Peace. Anna Karenina was so good. But...all.those.Russian.names. It's not the length....it's keeping track of all the names. But, soon.

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    1. The names are a challenge, so I printed out the wikipedia list of characters and kept it handy. It helped a lot, and about a quarter of the way through, I didn't need it anymore.

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