Tuesday, September 04, 2012

My progress with the Chunkster Challenge


(Thanks to Vicki Nesting, who called my attention to this all-too-appropriate graphic)

Earlier this year I decided to take up the Chunkster Challenge, setting my goal at Plump Primer level, which means six chunksters of 450pp or higher.  Well... (gulp) it's only September, but it appears I've met my goal.  In fact, I've met it twice and then some.

Just to recap, here's my list of chunky reading thus far, in order:

(1) Elliot Perlman, The Street Sweeper
(2) Rosie Thomas, The Kashmir Shawl
(3) Curtis Bill Pepper, Leonardo: A Biographical Novel - see Booklist review at end of linked page
(4) Rebecca Gablé, The Settlers of Catan
(5) Robert Lyndon, Hawk Quest
(6) Michelle Moran, Madame Tussaud
(7) Beatriz Williams, Overseas
(8) Kate Forsyth, Bitter Greens
(9) Clare Clark, Beautiful Lies - excellent book, I'll post the review shortly
(10) Adriana Trigiani, The Shoemaker's Wife
(11) Ken Follett, Winter of the World - for review out around the publication date.  At over 900pp, this should count double.
(12) Barbara Erskine, Lady of Hay - reread, for discussion with the author at HNS Conference London
(13) Elizabeth Chadwick, The Greatest Knight - ditto!

Whew!  No wonder my wrists are tired.  I also want to acknowledge having read Amanda Coplin's The Orchardist, Enid Shomer's The Twelve Rooms of the Nile, and Selden Edwards' The Lost Prince, which are sitting back and teasing me with their almost-but-not-quite 448pp length.  Could they not have printed two more pages in these books so I could make it sixteen?  Is that too greedy of me??

I haven't totaled up the page count. The year isn't yet over, and there may be more.

5 comments:

  1. Oooh, fantastic list! I'm totally poaching from it -- and I'm so happy to hear you liked Beautiful Lies as I have it in my queue for later this month!

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    1. In compiling my list, I forgot at first that Beautiful Lies was a chunkster - I don't remember it as a lengthy read since I devoured it so quickly!

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  2. Great job, Sarah! This is a challenge I should have joined since it would encourage me to tackle some of the massive books on my tbr.

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    1. Most of them were pretty good, but it hasn't helped my TBR much because they were nearly all new titles! I wouldn't mind seeing the A-Z in Historical Fiction challenge come back. That one was great for getting me to read some of my older books.

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  3. I'm trying to get through 'Infinite Jest' at the moment. Wish me luck...!

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