Chunkster Challenge Wrap-up

By -
The Chunkster Challenge people say:
It’s December which means this year’s Chunkster Challenge is coming to an end. If you wrote a wrap-up post or plan to, please use Mr. Linky below to link up to your post. If you don’t have a blog, leave a comment in the comments section telling us how you did with this challenge. We would all love to know what your favorite chunkster was this year. Was there a chunkster you didn’t enjoy? Let us know that too. 
I think this may be my best challenge of the year, in that it got me to read some of the most rewarding books.  I said a couple of days ago that Anna Karenina, A Suitable Boy, and In the First Circle were some of my best books for 2013.  I also really enjoyed nearly all my other picks, except for one.  Pamela started off well but went downhill, especially in the second volume.  I should have just read the first one.

Here are the books I read:


  1.  Anna Karenina, by Lev Tolstoy (963 pages)
  2.  Portrait of a Lady, by Henry James (789 pages)
  3. Zaremba, or Love and the Rule of Law, by Michelle Granas (518 pages)
  4. Pamela, by Samuel Richardson (926 pages) 
  5. In the First Circle, by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (741 pages) 
  6. A Suitable Boy, by Vikram Seth (1474 pages) 
  7. The Doll, by Boleslaw Prus (680 pages) 
  8. The Count of Monte Cristo, by Alexandre Dumas (1274 pages)
I finished November 20, and I actually have another chunkster in the works right now, so in the end it will be 9.  

I will be doing this challenge again in 2014, so you'll see a sign-up post soon.   I'm even thinking of doing a Les Miserables read-along, maybe over the summer--anybody interested?

Comments

  1. CleoDecember 8, 2013 at 11:01 PM

    If it's over the summer I will definitely be interested in re-reading Les Miserables. It is one of my favourites! While I love Jean Valjean, I think my favourite character is the bishop, M. Myriel. I will add this possibility to my ever-expanding list for 2014!

    ReplyDelete
  2. ArenelDecember 9, 2013 at 4:53 AM

    Great work here! I also like challenges that make me read daunting books, but unfortunately this one forbids ebooks for some reason :(

    ReplyDelete
  3. JeanDecember 9, 2013 at 8:18 AM

    Go take a look--the rules are changing to allow e-books now.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Ruth @ with freedom and booksDecember 10, 2013 at 12:03 PM

    Now I know what you mean about A Suitable Boy (1474 pages)!

    Well, speaking of chunksters, I was hoping to read a couple of epic reads in 2014, like Les Mis and War and Peace, so I would definitely join you in doing a Les Mis read-along next summer.

    ReplyDelete
  5. JeanDecember 10, 2013 at 12:29 PM

    Neat, I will see if I can do a Les Mis read-along then! Hm, I'm pondering War and Peace as well...though how to host two giant read-alongs is more than I can figure out.

    ReplyDelete
  6. CleoDecember 10, 2013 at 1:01 PM

    I'm just finishing up War and Peace so I could probably join in for the discussion but I wouldn't read it again. I'm finding that the further you read in the book, the more insight you get into what you have read before. Tolstoy is just amazing. I know I'll still be thinking about this book months after I've completed it.

    ReplyDelete
  7. VasillyDecember 14, 2013 at 8:34 AM

    Congratulations on finishing the challenge! If you host a Les Miserables read-along, let me know. I'll put up a post on the Chunkster blog.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

I'd love to know what you think, so please comment!

Popular posts from this blog

The Four Ages of Poetry

By -
Image
  "The Four Ages of Poetry," by Thomas Love Peacock I am becoming fond of Thomas Love Peacock.  Besides his unbeatable name, he was a lot of fun.  Peacock was a minor literary figure of the early 19th century; he tried his hand at poetry but mainly succeeded in satire.  I read his short novel Nightmare Abbey last year, but at the time I didn't know that the young hero of the story, Scythrop, was modeled on Peacock's good friend Percy Shelley.  He and Shelley were quite close and Peacock was the executor of Shelley's will. Thomas Love Peacock Percy Bysshe Shelley "The Four Ages of Poetry," a tongue-in-cheek essay on the history and development of poetry, was published in 1820 in a new magazine called Literary Miscellany , which promptly died.  It would probably have been completely obscure and unknown--it nearly is anyway--but for Shelley.  Peacock sent a copy to his friend, who I guess didn't really have much of a sense of
Read more

A few short stories in Urdu

By -
Image
 Back in August, I got hold of a book of Urdu short stories translated into English.  It's a large book, so I wanted to read just the women authors for WIT, and that would still be a good amount.  August got away from me, and I only read one or two stories back then, but I've continued reading them since.  I've now finished all the short stories in the book that were written by women (luckily for me, there are short biographies in an appendix, since I could only tell from the name about half the time).  I'll just highlight a couple: "The Wagon," by Khalida Asghar, is a hallucinatory, apocalyptic story.  The narrator meets three strange men who are watching the evening sky and point out that it has become red.  No one had noticed until they said so, but the sky is now strangely red.  Then a smell arrives, so offensive and sickening that it causes real pain -- but only once it's pointed out.  And finally, a mysterious wagon, which may be the source of the s
Read more

Faerie Queen Readalong I: Redcrosse, the Knight of Holiness

By -
Image
I did it, I read all of Book I!  My minimum requirement was two cantos a day, but I managed three a couple of times.  I'm hoping to read ahead, because I'll be gone for two weeks in the middle of this event and I'd like to be able to prep a post ahead of time...but the schedule is already pretty demanding.  The reading is not terribly difficult, but it is slow.  I keep thinking that I've read a large chunk, only to look back and realize that in fact I have read six verses.  So here we go with analysis... Each book in the Faerie Queene features a knight, and a story, about a particular virtue.  The Redcrosse Knight, to be known as St. George after he accomplishes his feats, is all about Holinesse .  This does not mean that Redcrosse already exemplifies holiness; he doesn't.  Holiness is what he's working towards and struggling with.  His foes symbolize various forms of unholiness, and he falls into their clutches at least as often as he defeats or avoids th
Read more