Booking Through Thursday

What’s the biggest book you’ve read recently?

(Feel free to think “big” as size, or as popularity, or in any other way you care to interpret.)

I've seen this blog around and really enjoyed some of the responses, so I thought I'd join in.

Hmm, well I have a few candidates for this, and I can't really decide...

In terms of size the biggest book I've read recently is 'A Suitable Boy' by Vikram Seth. It's one of those lovely novels that's so long it becomes a familiar friend and leaves a noticeable gap in daily life once it's eventually finished.

I also read 'White Tiger' by Aravind Adiga a few weeks ago, which, having just won the Booker prize, is a pretty 'big' novel at the moment, although I'm not quite sure it deserves all the hype. (My review will follow shortly).

However, I think my 'biggest' reading acheivement ever (I'm stretching 'recently' a little here) has to be Tolstoy's 'War and Peace'. The battered twentieth hand copy I picked up whilst living in Namibia a few years ago felt like a true hurdle to be overcome, and I haven't yet found the same elation when completing any other book. It's not a classic I can see myself re-reading though!