Top Ten Tuesday: Big Books!

Welcome to this week's edition of Top Ten Tuesday which is hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl. This week's theme is Books with a High Page Count (Share those doorstop books!)

Once upon a time if I saw a big, thick book on a bookstore shelf then there was every chance I would buy it. The bigger, the better! I even used to participate in a Chunkster Challenge. These days, I don't read that many chunksters. Also, if I am going to buy big books, it would most likely be an ebook that I can read on my Kindle.

Originally I was planning to refer to my spreadsheets and do this topic by looking for the books with the most number of pages. However, I decided to go with a simpler approach. Instead I scanned my overflowing bookshelves and looked for the thickest books I could find! The only rule/guideline I had was that I could only use one book per author. Of course, when I was putting them back on the shelves I found several other books that I should have used for this prompt too!

I Know This Much is True by Wally Lamb -(863 pages) I swear that I got this book not long after it came out, but I still have never read it!

War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy - (1270 pages) I am currently doing a chapter a day readalong so after talking about reading it for 15 years I am finally doing it!

The Brightest Star in the Sky by Marian Keyes - (614 pages) This is another one I haven't read yet. It almost feels like a pattern forming here right?

A Breath of Snow and Ashes by Diana Gabaldon - (980 pages) Most of Gabaldon's books could fit this theme. I have read this one. (My review)

The Shadow Sister by Lucinda Riley - (672 pages)I am not even sure why I have a paper copy of this book because I listened to all 8 books in this series. That's a lot of listening time.

Bettany's Book by Tom Keneally - (599 pages) It looks like I got this off of a remainders table. I haven't read it yet and I am not really sure if I will or not. It survived the last cull of my bookshelves. It might not survive the next one whenever that happens!

A Song in the Daylight by Paullina Simons - (767 pages) I loved many of Paullina Simons's books, but this wasn't my favourite. I did see that she has just announced that she has a new book coming out. It sounds great, but I am not sure if I will rush out and read it or not.

Forever Amber by Kathleen Winsor - (860 pages) Gosh I loved this epic book! Someone I know is reading this at the moment and called it a great romp, and that is the perfect description of the book! I used the words bawdy romp in my review.

When Christ and His Saints Slept by Sharon Kay Penman - (909 pages) SKP is another author who wrote big epic books! 

Dawn on a Distant Shore by Sara Donati - (647 pages) This is a favourite series. I noticed when I took it off the shelf that there is a bookmark in it. I must have been intending to reread it at some point.

By looking at the variation in pages numbers on all the page numbers you can really see what a difference the way the book is produced from the thickness of the paper to the size of the font!

Do you love big books!

Forever Amber by Kathleen Winsor

This is my read for the April TBR challenge, which for this month was to read a book that has been in your TBR pile for longer than 6 months.

Title: Forever Amber

Author: Kathleen Winsor

Year published: Originally published in 1945

Why did you get this book? I have been meaning to read this for a couple of years and then it was chosen for this month's book of the month in one of my groups.

Do you like the cover? The cover that I have been able to show here is infinitely better than the cover of the version I have that was published in 1983. My cover features a man and a busty woman in a very low cut dress walking together up a hill that overlooks London.

Did you enjoy the book? Yes.

Was the author new to you and would you read something by this author again? The author is new to me, but I probably won't be reading anything else by her. Whilst Miss Winsor did have other books published, Forever Amber was the only one that was actually anywhere near successful (a kind of one hit wonder so to speak), which is kind of strange given that this book was banned in some US states not too long after it was published because it was too sexy. You would have thought that that kind of notoriety would have made it easy for follow up sales, but apparently not.

Are you keeping it or passing it on? Keeper! There were lots of details in this book, and I'm sure a reread would bring some more of those to the forefront.

Anything else? At 850+ pages this is a doorstopper of a book, but it is a relatively easy read. It is chocked full of historical details, including gruelling details of the Plague that hit London in 1665, and the subsequent Great Fire that destroyed parts of the city the following year. We follow a young woman, Amber St Clare through a 10 year period of her life, from when she is a 16 year old village girl who meets and becomes besotted with a Lord Bruce Carlton and runs away to London with him, through a period in Newgate debtor's prison, to her rise as an actress, courtesan and finally mistress to King Charles II, notorious womaniser. We see Amber at her best, at her most manipulative and most cunning as she tries to work her way up from the bottom of the social ladder to the very top. Yet through numerous relationships, marriages, and affairs, Amber still loves Bruce Carlton as she can love no other.

A bawdy romp through Restoration England and well worth a read

Rating: 4/5


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