A Dilemma

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Oh dear.  I have been looking at all my lovely piles of books and deciding what I want to read next, and there are lots of wonderful things to read.  I've been pottering my way through M. R. James because it's October--and the stories are very well worth re-reading, I'm noticing a lot of good stuff I didn't necessarily get before--and I just started Gustav Meyrink's seriously bizarre novel The Golem, and I'm dedicating October to reading Boleslaw Prus' novel, The Doll, which is supposed to be one of the great Polish novels and indeed so far it is good.

I've got rather a lot of history to get through if I want to finish all my challenges properly--I have several books to go for the TBR challenges and the majority of them are weighty or dense.  And I've got a bunch of great books checked out of the library, like Code Name Verity and Napoleon's Buttons.  Plus I just got Susan Wise Bauer's new history book, The History of the Renaissance World, which I've been looking forward to enormously.  You have to love a book about the Renaissance that has a 'Dance of Death' painting on the cover.

So of course a really tempting readalong has shown up to throw all my plans out of whack!  Tomorrow, Elyssa at Unscripted is kicking off a two-month readalong of The Count of Monte Cristo.  I was kind of thinking I would dedicate 2014 to giant French novels--I'm hoping to find a readalong of Les Miserables and I was going to do Monte Cristo too.  But what a fun chance!  What do I do??  It only comes out to 2.5 chapters a day--I can squeeze that in, right?  (Realistically, no, I can't.  As it is I'm having a hard time finding time to read.)

Update: well, I read the first 3 chapters of the story, and as the comments said, it's both easy and exciting.  I'll give it a go.  So this is now my sign-up post.



Comments

  1. ArenelOctober 7, 2013 at 10:54 PM

    I'd say go for it! 2.5 chapters a day is not that much when it comes to Monte Cristo. For me it was a great page-turner!

    Also, if you find some read-a-long for Les Mis, please don't forget to announce it, as I'm in a desperate need for one too ;)

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  2. FaithOctober 8, 2013 at 5:26 AM

    I'll reiterate what the above poster said. The count of Monte Cristo is not a difficult read; the chapters are fairly short and they always have an element of a cliff hanger to them; you can't wait to read the next chapter. In fact the most difficult part will be to stick to just 2.5 chapters a week! Wonderful book! I'd join in the read along except I have to reread Joan of Arc by Twain right now to write a little discussion guide for our homeschool group and that is taking precedence over everything. And I am not capable of the volume or speed at which you read! I am always jealous of how many books you get through in a year!

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  3. Alex in LeedsOctober 8, 2013 at 12:49 PM

    I'm another Count fan and I have to say, don't let the length put you off. Although it's the same sort of length as Les Miserables it has much tighter plot and a faster rollercoaster pace that will carry you along. A couple of chapters a day is definitely do-able. :)

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  4. JeanOctober 8, 2013 at 1:31 PM

    OK, thanks everyone! I'm going to do it.

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  5. AnonymousOctober 8, 2013 at 5:21 PM

    Fun! Even if you give up in the middle it'll still have been fun while it lasted. My favorite part anyway is the beginning, when they're talking about all the insane things they make for themselves out of materials in the prison. :p

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  6. BronaOctober 28, 2013 at 3:39 PM

    Too much going on right now to join in this one, but Les Mis is on my CC list, so if a readalong comes along - let us all know :-)

    ReplyDelete
  7. JeanOctober 28, 2013 at 3:44 PM

    I might just host one--I know several people who want to do it!

    ReplyDelete

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