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Booking up with a good Curl
Monday, November 7th, 2011 02:59 pmI think I am taking a break from The Forsyte Saga on my Kindle.
It’s one of those odd tomes that is entertaining enough while you’re reading it, but which does not call out for you to dash back, find a quiet alcove and carry on with it. I shall read the whole saga, but not just yet.
So what have I decided to launch into instead? Well, Furtle is anxious that I dip into her newly discovered and rapidly being devoured world of Shardlake books and I think I shall at some point soon. Trouble is, I also have the entire George RR Martin Game of Thrones sequence to tackle, too. I read the first one when it came out, but need to revisit it before launching on the other novels.
So, shall I be starting with any of this lot?
No. Instead, I am tackling Christopher Andrew’s Defence of the Realm: The Authorised History of MI5.
I bought it a couple of years ago when it was published for the centenary of the service. I have intended to read it since, but the sheer size of the bloody thing has put me off each time I’ve thought about it. But now I have taken the plunge and am lugging all 1,000+ pages around with me to do so. Admittedly over 250 of those pages are notes, bibliography and index etc, but nonetheless, my current read is indeed a weighty tome.
At least with this, I shall have the satisfaction of seeing the advance of the book mark through the pages. There has been a sort of exquisite despair with the Forsytes on my Kindle as the percentage read seems to remain the same no matter how many chapters I get through.
It is not a foregone conclusion that I shall manage this current opus: I have discarded, temporarily or permanently smaller books this year (Tony Blair, anyone?), but in theory at least, I like BIG BOOKS.
It’s one of those odd tomes that is entertaining enough while you’re reading it, but which does not call out for you to dash back, find a quiet alcove and carry on with it. I shall read the whole saga, but not just yet.
So what have I decided to launch into instead? Well, Furtle is anxious that I dip into her newly discovered and rapidly being devoured world of Shardlake books and I think I shall at some point soon. Trouble is, I also have the entire George RR Martin Game of Thrones sequence to tackle, too. I read the first one when it came out, but need to revisit it before launching on the other novels.
So, shall I be starting with any of this lot?
No. Instead, I am tackling Christopher Andrew’s Defence of the Realm: The Authorised History of MI5.
I bought it a couple of years ago when it was published for the centenary of the service. I have intended to read it since, but the sheer size of the bloody thing has put me off each time I’ve thought about it. But now I have taken the plunge and am lugging all 1,000+ pages around with me to do so. Admittedly over 250 of those pages are notes, bibliography and index etc, but nonetheless, my current read is indeed a weighty tome.
At least with this, I shall have the satisfaction of seeing the advance of the book mark through the pages. There has been a sort of exquisite despair with the Forsytes on my Kindle as the percentage read seems to remain the same no matter how many chapters I get through.
It is not a foregone conclusion that I shall manage this current opus: I have discarded, temporarily or permanently smaller books this year (Tony Blair, anyone?), but in theory at least, I like BIG BOOKS.