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!

Anzac Day 2013

Today it is Anzac Day here in Australia, and in New Zealand, where we remember the landing of our troops on the beaches of Gallipoli and then later on the battlefields of the Somme during WWI It is a day that has come to mean so much more than just remembrance of all our soldiers who have fought and died for our freedom but also in many ways these events shaped our cultural identities.

Over the years I have shared a number of different posts on Anzac Day from songs, books, explanations of two-up and, last year, a conversation with one of my favourite Kiwi bloggers Maree from Just Add Books.

This year, I thought I would share just one paragraph from Tom Keneally's book Daughter of Mars. I remember reading this paragraph numerous times when I came across it in the book, and even after having read it so many times I do find it quite a powerful passage.

The men arrived with a word on their lips - Pozieres. It might have been a village but it was vast in their minds: the birthplace of their pain. The English newspapers had a name even broader than Pozieres. The name of a bloody river previously unremarked in the earth's imagination. The Somme ran scarlet and was vaster than the Nile or Amazon now in the imagination of all those in France. It was the altar on which Abraham did sacrifice his son, and no God spoke out to stay the knife.

Lest we forget

Christmas Quotes: Christmas in the Trenches

Today's quotes come from the Daughters of Mars by Tom Keneally. It is hard to imagine how difficult it must be for people who are serving their countries far from home during the holiday season and so today I am taking a moment to think of them and posting these quotes in their honour.

The first quote comes from page 281:

Outside the mess tent the orderlies were unloading Christmas billy cans - stamped with a kangaroo and a boomerang and full of chocolate and minute puddings in cloth. A letter inside was addressed to 'Dear Soldier of Australia'. Ten days to Christmas, and intact men were landing on Lemnos each day in numbers suddenly too big for the rest camp. Sally and Slattery - shopping from peddlers - watched them march by. Their faces were gaunt and stained with weariness. The eyes seemed not yet aware that they had been brought back into the living world. There was too much continuances of geography between Gallipoli and here.

And from later in the war (page 483).

Lady Tarlton's chateau was decked for Christmas and kept warm at least in patches by army stoves. Naomi and the nurses made up Christmas boxes for each patient - simple things such as chocolate and tobacco, shortbread, a writing pad. Symbols of homely renewal. She had bought Matron Mitchie some lace in Boulogne. This was one of those Christmases Naomi had read of - when joy is a simple achievement. Her sister now wrote to her weekly and Ian at least each second day. Yet even with the Americans now in France, no one dared speak anymore of the coming year as the conclusive one.