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?
Find Deanna around SOCIAL MEDIA:
No comments:
Post a Comment