Reading challenge: tackle the book that you have owned the longest

[bibliomania]

Its time has finally come - pick up the book that has accompanied you through the last umpteen house moves, or the one that has languished longest in the depths of your kindle. The challenge is simple: to read it between now and the end of June.

If you start it and it's not for you, maybe it's time to let it go to a new home.

With physical books, you won't always know which you've owned the longest, but go on - pick one!

I'm going with Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World, by Jack Weatherford. It was published in 2004 and acquired by me in December 2015. Its time has come!

I’ve had Shantaram on my bookshelf waiting to be read just forever. I bought it at a village fete years ago and have never braved it as it looks like a mammoth read. I keep thinking one of these days…

15 rooms down and 4 to go in At Home

Finished At Home by Bill Bryson!

It was an interesting book. I found it quite difficult to stick with, though! The premise is BB going through the rooms (and garden) in his rectory in Norfolk, and using them for a wander through various bits of social history in the UK and USA. Garden design, architecture, the history of linen and cotton, the Poor Laws… all interesting but not a really coherent narrative, to me.

Well done, @SheilaFentiman !

Found this thread late. But it inspired me to go checking through my kindle. Oldest non read book is the phantom of the opera. So I'm starting it tonight

I've had to stop reading my Gladys Mitchell after a few pages. I'm just not in the mood. It's irritating because I think it could be really enjoyable but would require making more of an effort to get into it. That's what I'm not in the mood for.

Plenty of time, @IveLostMyUsername - my plan is to do this till the end of June.

@tobee I really like Golden Age crime, but I do find Gladys Mitchell books to be a bit slow to read. I don't like her as much as I was hoping to.

I’m now 33% into my second (of 6) 2012 reads languishing on my kindle - The Fraction of the Whole by Steve Toltz. There are parts of this book I’m really enjoying but it’s ridiculously long. To get to 33% has taken 7 hours of reading and over a week (though I am reading other books alongside it). It reminds me a bit of John Irving’s A Prayer for Eoin Meany- it’s quirky and long-winded and I imagine finishing it will be satisfying but I just don’t know if I’m going to. Will it be worth it or should I DNF?!
I’ve also started dipping into number 3 (also ridiculously long- there’s a pattern emerging for these books on my kindle since 2012…) which is The Mitfords- Letters between 6 Sisters. I’m only at 4%. My kindle tells me this one is 22 hours long…

Haven't read the Toltz book, but I found the Mitford letters were enjoyable and get more interesting over time as their lives get more complicated. You'd be forgiven a bit of skimming over the earlier stuff.

I am over 250 pages into Ulysses and I have to admit there are chunks of text where I have no bloomin’ clue what is going on.

Stopping to look up explanations really breaks the flow, so I have been ploughing on regardless but, if I ever get to the end, I think I might have to read it again with the help of footnotes or The Joyce Project website to understand it. This is not a prospect that fills me with glee.

DD has bought her own copy. Her edition comes with footnotes which makes the book twice as fat as my one.

For light relief I took a break to read Titanic and Other Ships, a memoir by the Titanic’s senior surviving officer, who led an unbelievably action-packed life that reads rather like a Boys’ Own adventure. It was so straightforward by comparison!

Love this! I have had EP Thompsons Making of the English Working Class for 29 years unread! I might give the introduction a go!

Right, I'm going to be realistic that I will only every finish the tome that is The Seven Basic Plots on an extended holiday with a bookstand or if I buy it on Kindle :>

So I will shoot for The Good Man Jesus and The Scoundrel Christ by Philip Pullman - bought Sep 2011 on Kindle. Only 272 pages...

ETA At Home was 706 pages! This is one Kindle drawback, you don't always know what you are tacking!

I have DNFed the Toltz. It was too bitty- jumping from one story to the next while not feeling you were getting any further ahead in an overarching narrative. Plus all the male characters (bar one) were exactly the same- witty, disastrous, misanthropes while the women were flat. I would have read this to the end when I was younger but I’ve learned my lesson- it was sending me into a reading slump so I quit.

I am continuing to read the Mitfords and thoroughly enjoying it. It’s a dip in and out of book I think being all letters but it’s fascinating. Some of the letters sound thoroughly made up, they’re so alien to my life. And the Hitler adoration is shocking to read in modern times. Will definitely finish that one but I’m sure it will take me quite some time! My next fiction I’m going to try (from 2012) is Pure by Andrew Miller. I’m going to try some this evening and if it grabs me, I’ll go with it- if not I’ve a recommendation from Stowick in the 50 Bookers thread to look at instead. (BTW anyone here not on the 50 Bookers thread should definitely take a look- nicest place on the internet)

Yes, echoing the welcome to the 50 book thread (and there's no obligation to read 50 books or to even count the books you read).

I've picked up Living with the Laird, by Belinda Rathbone, a memoir by an American woman who married a Scottish man with a crumbling ancestral pile near Dundee. No idea how many years I've owned it, but it has a bright green spine that always catches my eye on the shelf, so I know it's been a while.

I have a copy of The Hobbit that is 39 years old - I got it at the school book fair along with a copy of Wolf Pie signed by the illustrator Tony Ross who came to the fair. Might take me a bit less time to read the second one but I shall look forward to revisiting Middle Earth in June.

I have just finishedWhite Tiger which I believe won the Booker prize. It was good I don't know why I didn't read it sooner.

You might be setting the record with 39 years, @ComemosZanahorias

That sounds satisfying, @minsmum.

Now that it's June, I need to embark on The Corner that Held Them, by Sylvia Townsend Warner. I sort of do and sort of don't want to.

I have started TGMJATSC

Well done, @SheilaFentiman !

I’m now half way through my books from 2012 kindle list. I’ve read She-wolves (just okay) and just finished Pure by Andrew Miller which I loved. I’ve also DNFed A Fraction of the Whole.
3 left- The Making of Modern Britain, Winter in Madrid and Letters Between 6 Sisters - The Mitfords (about 1/3 through this and really enjoying it)

That's great, Ull!. I haven't picked up The Corner that Held Them yet...

I have finished The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ - Philip Pullman

It wasn’t really for me but I stuck with it as I was quite short. I really enjoyed the Lyra and Will trilogy back in the day, but this reimagined theology wasn’t so gripping.

Congrats on fe getting another off the list @SheilaFentiman