Today is my very first Top 5 Wednesday. Top 5 Wednesday (T5W) is a goodreads group of booktubers, bloggers, etc who all answer the same topic on a given Wednesday. If you want to know more, check out the group here.
Today's Top 5 is:
Top 5 Books That Took You the Longest to Finish
I am not a reader who generally lets books sit for a long time on my reading pile. I either commit to a book and read it through fairly quickly or if something isn't grabbing my attention I will stop and restart it again at some future date. I had to scour my goodreads for anything that took me longer than a month but I did manage to find 5. So without further ado:
#5 Epitaph for a Spy by Eric Ambler
This book took me 44 days and what's really sad is that the book is only 263 pages long. This book tells the story of Josef Vadassy who is on vacation in the Riviera when the world is on the verge of WWII. He finds himself in the midst of a hotel housing a spy but who is the spy? A great spy/mystery novel. I don't know why it took me so long to read it.
#4 In the Garden of Beasts by Eric Larson
This book also took me 44 days. In fact it was the exact same 44 days as the last book which might explain why I got a little bogged down in WWII. (I was also probably reading at least two other books at the time.) A narrative Non-Fiction focusing on an American ambassador in Berlin during Hitler's rise to power.
#3 Under the Harrow by Mark Dunn
This book took me 56 days which isn't too bad considering that it clocks in at almost 600 pages. If you go to goodreads the first sentence in the description is, 'What if Charles Dickens had written contemporary thriller?' I'll leave it at that and let you explore this book for yourself.
#2 S. by J.J. Abrams and Doug Dorst
108 days. Of all the books on this list, this is the one I would recommend most highly. This book is amazing for its style alone. (Although I also thoroughly enjoyed the story!) This is a book within a book. You have two different readers who use the book as their way of communicating so beside the actual story in the book you have dialogue of two college students writing in the margins. The book is also stuffed full of extra bits and pieces: letters written to each other, postcards, maps drawn on napkins. If nothing else, you need to own this book just for the pure beauty of it and the interaction of the reading experience.
#1 The Time Traveler's Guide to Elizabethan England by Ian Mortimer
This book took me a whopping 128 days. This book is so much fun because it talks about the ins and outs of everyday life: what people wore, what they ate, how they kept themselves clean (or didn't), what it was like to be rich or poor, what jobs people did, even vocabulary that was different. I think this book took me so long just because I would read a page here or there and not sit down and take in big chunks of it in one sitting. But this is a great book, would definitely recommend.
As always, thanks for reading!
I loved S! I keep recommending it as a gift idea for bookworms, because the mere act of reading it is so rewarding. The two narratives - the novel and the commentary by our protagonists - weave into each other perfectly and make for a compelling and layered reading experience. And I really appreciated the high production value of the book. Turning the page and have a postcard, a glossy photo or even a proper napkin with a map drawn on it fall into your lap make reading the book feel like embarking on a treasure hunt. I agree with your recommendation!
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