ahef1963's 2019 ROOT Challenge

I tried this group before and for reasons that I don't even remember, I dropped out. But I'm back! For the first time ever, I don't have a number goal for how many books I'm planning to read. My intent is to read some of the large and therefore scary books on my shelves, as well as giving another go to books on which I've given up. I'd like to be able to say "War and Peace"? Yes, of course I've read that. I'd also like to read some non-fiction that's been sitting on my shelves forever.

For my own reference: books on my shelf that are large and daunting:
War and Peace and Anna Karenina both by Leo Tolstoy
The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky
The Stand by Stephen King as well as a book of his short stories, Nightmares and Dreamscapes
Three by Charles Dickens: Nicholas Nickleby; The Old Curiosity Shop; Martin Chuzzlewit
Two by Victor Hugo: Les Miserables and The Hunchback of Notre Dame
The Complete Fiction of H.P. Lovecraft
Oscar and Lucinda by Peter Carey
Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts
Dune by Frank Herbert
A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara
Under Heaven and The Last Light of the Sun by Guy Gavriel Kay
The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton
One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Catch-22 by Joseph Heller - which isn't all that long but it intimidates me.

The Aeneid, The Odyssey, The Iliad - none of them long but I've never read them despite owning copies, and they are classics I would like to read.

For my own reference. This is an incomplete list, as a good part of my non-fiction shelf is behind my Christmas tree, but it's a start. I often do non-fiction bit by bit, for instance a chapter a day, or two chapters if they're shorter. I've never been the sort that can just sit down and read a book of non-fiction unless it's really, really compelling.

Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari
Victoria: A Life by A.N. Wilson
The Romanov Sisters by Helen Rappaport
Jane Goodall: The Woman Who Redefined Man by Dale Peterson as well as My Life with the Chimpanzees by Jane Goodall herself
In the Kingdom of Ice by Hampton Sides
The Voyage of the Beagle by Charles Darwin
The Seven Storey Mountain by Thomas Merton
Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania by Erik Larson
A Spy among Friends: Kim Philby and the Great Betrayal by Ben MacIntyre
The Chomsky Reader
Furiously Happy by Jenny Lawson
The Road from Coorain by Jill Ker Conway
People who Eat Darkness by Richard Lloyd Parry

January 1, 2019:

I'm going to start with The Stand for dauntingly huge works of fiction, and Sapiens for non-fiction, as it's new and quite fashionable.

Also, I'm going to be reading The Bible from cover to cover. I've done it before, about twelve years ago, and it's time for me to do that again. Our Daily Bread, in addition to giving guided readings day by day, has a "Bible in a Year" component that I'm going to make use of this time around. I may end up buying a companion book when I get to Isaiah: I got stuck on it the last time, finding it utterly confusing, and would like to enjoy it and understand it this time round. That's not for months, anyhow.

Hi Allie, good to see you again. If you are going to read large books you could also join the BFB group. Big Fat Books. but that's up to you of course. You get all the support you need to get you through those doorstoppers (600 pages or more)

https://www.librarything.nl/groups/2019bigfatbooks

Welcome to the ROOTers, Happy reading!

Welcome back and good luck with those chunksters!

Welcome back, good luck with your reading! I read War & Peace a few years ago, but I did it as a year-long read, which worked really well for me. It was much more palatable in small chunks, for me anyway!

Welcome bach and good luck with those chunky classics.