Monster long books that are intimidating me

I have had very limited time to read lately and combined with books seeming to be published in shorter and shorter lengths but coming out more frequently, I have been reading books that tend to be between 100 to 200+ pages more frequently. It's gotten to the point that when I see a 300+ or 400+ page book, I wonder if I can afford the time commitment.

There are a number of books that are monster books lengthwise that I want to tackle this year for various reasons.

The first one is Outlander by Diana Gabaldon from the Outlander series. I've read the first 3 books of the series when it was originally published some 20+ years ago (yes, I'm showing my age!) but it's been a long time and all I really remember is I enjoyed them. My girlfriend Bambi is mad for them and we are going to Ireland, Scotland and England next year in October. During the trip to Scotland, she wants to do some sort of Outlander tour so we need to read the books. Only the books are 550+ pages long and the first book, Outlander is 560 pages long. That's about 9 hours and 54 minutes of reading time according to my Kindle app. We've determined that in August, we will start the series over and read one book a month leading up to the trip. This will give us a chance to finish the series before the trip plus some buffer time if we don't read it fast enough.

The next book is Game of Thrones by George R R Martin. This book is a WHOPPING 819 pages!!! I've been dying to watch the TV series and it's been raved about by all my friends but I struggle between watching the show first and reading the book first. I find that if I read a book first before watching the show, if it is not a good reproduction of the book, the show is not as good. For example, True Blood is based on the Sookie Stackhouse series by Charlaine Harris but the TV show is nothing like the books and I did not enjoy the show at all. I stopped watching after the first season. That said, I've been told that the Game of Thrones show is a good rendition of the book and that you'd understand the show better if you read the book. I don't know. I'm very torn about this. I have always found, at least with movies, that if I watch the show first, I will have a picture in my head of the characters and even if the show does not follow the plot of the book carefully, I'm okay with that. When I read the book after watching the show, I feel I can visualize the characters better but not be hindered by what I've watched to enjoy the nuances of the book. I'm so torn!

Finally, the last book is one of my favorite series. The All Souls Trilogy. I talked about this book in my post on what series I need to catch up on. The Book of Life by Deborah Harkness is 564 pages which now doesn't sound quite as intimidating after I've seen how long Game of Thrones is!! It's still long though. If I sat and did nothing but read, I could possibly get through it in 2, possibly 3 days. I love this series and I love Deborah Harkness' writing, so I know this will be good. I just need to find the time to feel like I am in the right headspace to tackle this.

I'll need to talk to Bambi, but I'm thinking perhaps Game of Thrones in July and August, then Outlander in September, now that I'm looking at what needs to be read and when, I'm feeling rather intimidated.

I know that the Outlander series is done in such a way that one season of the show equals one book in the series. I'm not sure about Game of Thrones but I think it's the same thing. I will need to Google it. I won't link to it though when I find it as I do not want to inadvertantly link to spoilers for people who have not watched the show or read the book. Thank goodness, Book of Life is not a TV show yet though I would be totally okay with that becoming a TV show. :-)

I'm thinking while I write here and given that it's faster to watch the TV show than it is to read the books, I am likely going to end up watching the show first before reading the books. Plus Steve has not read the books, nor is he likely to, so I think it would be more fun for us, if we watched the show together without reading the books first.

Well, lookee!! I think I've talked myself out of reading the books first before watching the shows. Don't fret though, Bambi! I will still read the books and I will attempt to stick to the timing we've agreed on for reading the books, whatever that ends up being, particularly for Outlander, since we've got that trip coming up!

What about you, dear reader? What monster books do you have lined up to tackle?

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