Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly book meme run by That Artsy Reader Girl. This week’s topic really stood out to me, as I feel like I have a number of hefty tomes that intimidate me away from reading them, despite having them on my shelf. I decided to mix things up a little, splitting it between big books I’ve managed to finish and big books I’ve yet to start. For me, big is anything approaching or above 700 pages in length. Maybe that’s high, maybe that’s low, I don’t know, pick your poison; 700 is just when a book starts looking especially long to me.

Ulysses by James Joyce

I bought this book from my university bookstore while it was on one of my syllabi. I have no idea why I did, because I’m 90% I’ll never read it. Don’t wanna, you can’t make me. Now it just taunts me on my shelf, keeping me humble.

The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien

Now, I know this is actually three books, but I’m the weirdo who bought a paperback edition that includes the trilogy in one complete volume, and that is precisely how I read through them all the first time. Mistakes were made, my back was sore carrying it around, but I got through it.

Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace

This is a book gifted to me by a family friend. I haven’t seen him in a long time, so it was very touching to receive one day in the mail, but its 1000-page word count has resulted in it resting on my bookshelf ever since. I will certainly read it one day, I think about it all the time, but it promises to be such an undertaking that I’m going to have to be in a very particular mood for it.

Vanity Fair by W. M. Thackeray

Somehow, I read this monster in about two weeks while I was in university. Well, I say “somehow”, but I know my method involved strictly keeping myself to daily reading quotas to get it done. I’m proud that I did it, but maybe only one other book ever got that treatment again in my academic career. Some novels are just too damn big when you’ve got other courses to worry about.

The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss

I bought the first and second books in this series so long ago, and I recall hearing how good people thought they were, I just haven’t bothered trying to get them started yet. So many other series at least have short entries. Maybe when I’m done with series commitments like Discworld I’ll  give these a proper look.

David Copperfield by Charles Dickens

Sadly, this only partially counts as a finished book. I read this book for the same course as Vanity Fair, and with so many huge novels on the syllabus, the professor threw us a bone and allowed us to skip a specific selection chapters at her discretion. Still, I read the lion’s share of this book, and that’s got to count for something.

The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri

I bought this deluxe edition well over a decade ago to match with the editions of other epic poetry I own like The Iliad. I fully intend to read this sometime, but epic poetry is such a particular mental undertaking that I find it especially hard to motivate myself to start reading this. At least the copy I got is pleasing to look at.

Moby-Dick by Herman Melville

A very recently completed tome, I’m still proud of myself for taking the time at the beginning of this year to finally read this novel, especially as I completed it a lot faster than I expected myself to. Perhaps that should be a lesson about holding myself back with some of these other books, thinking they will take me too long. It probably won’t be as laborious as I think.

It by Stephen King

I love reading Stephen King, and I try to read one of his novels once a year (which I’ve sort of slacked on lately), but it’s going to take a lot of drive to actually get me to tackle this one. That scene notwithstanding, it is an awfully long novel, especially big as a hardcover; I remember taking it home from my parent’s house (it’s my dad’s old copy) and having to carrying it in my backpack somewhere all day, which nearly killed my back. Knowing King’s writing style, however, I expect that this may be one of the easier tomes to get through on this list.

The Mysteries of Udolpho by Ann Radcliffe

I read this novel for a Gothic literature course and I’ll never forget the undertaking that it was. I believe I followed reading quotas for this one as well, though not as stringently as with Vanity Fair. In any case, I got through it, and while I recall finding it exhausting, I also recall a beauty and atmosphere to it that leaves me with a fondness for it.

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Until next time, thank you for reading! Feel free to share your own list down below.