Song of Fire and Ice | Watching the Words

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by the Broke and the Bookish. Book bloggers create their own lists based on the chosen topics and post links to our lists. It’s a way of all sharing our thoughts and our love of books. And who doesn’t love lists??

So this week’s challenge was to list the books that I find most intimidating. This was a little difficult for me – I’m not typically intimidated by books – just interested or not interested. I’ve read and loved Anna Karenina, Les Miserables, and Atlas Shrugged. Length does not intimidate me most times, I am mostly afraid that I will not like a book and some of the lengthy classics listed below require a lot of effort for little gain if I don’t enjoy them and there are so many books out there that I really, really want to read!

In Search of Lost Time by Marcel Proust – 7 volumes and about 4300 pages, need I say more???
War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy – I loved Anna Karenina, but I have never been inspired to tackle this tome.
Moby Dick by Herman Melville – The idea of an epic struggle with a whale just doesn’t make me want to dive into this one…
Ulysses by James Joyce – I know that it is a 20^th century classic and that it is supposed to be beautiful, but I have heard far more about how long and difficult it is…
Complete Works of William Shakespeare – I have read Shakespeare – Hamlet, Macbeth, Julius Caesar, Romeo & Juliet, ... but I just don’t see myself having the focused concentration required to get through it all while appreciating it.
The Bible – I’ve read it, parts of it, just have never attacked reading it from cover to cover – maybe someday.
Paradise Lost by John Milton – Over 10,000 lines of poetry? Probably not…
Song of Fire and Ice series by George R.R. Martin – With the HBO series so popular, a lot of people are devouring this series – but the books are so long and there are so many of them, it seems like a commitment I don’t want to make right now!
Outlander series by Diana Gabaldon – Another series with a lot of long books in it… I hear good things, but I’m not reading to dive in yet…
Boring Non-Fiction – I’ve written plenty of research papers and didn’t like to read my own. I certainly have no desire to read books that are basically research papers that are hundreds of pages long…

So this week the challenge is to list the book series that we’d like to start, but haven’t gotten around to yet. I’m going to cheat a little – well, maybe more than a little – and include series that I have started, at some point in my life, but never got around to finishing, series that I want to start over – and make it through the whole darn thing!

Wonderful World of Oz by Frank L. Baum – I read The Wonderful World of Oz when I was a kid, but I’ve never read the rest of the series. I just bought them all in hardcover and am looking forward to sharing these with my kids!
Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis – What can I say, some of these classic series for younger audiences I started as a kid, but never moved past the first book for some reason. So add this to the list as another great series that I could read out loud with the kids!
Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien – I read The Hobbit and I attempted at one point in my middle-school years to tackle the rest, but never made it. Since my hubby is such a fan I should probably give them another try!
Matched by Allie Condie – I have made a vow not to start any more trilogies until the last book has been released – I hate that year-long wait between books – it makes me crazy! And then there’s always the effort of trying to remember where I left off when the next book comes out! Now that Reached was released at the end of 2012 this is a trilogy that I have put on my to-read list.
Mortal Instruments by Cassandra Clare – I read her Infernal Devices series and the last book is coming out this month, finally! The Infernal Devices series is a prequel to the Mortal Instrument series, so once I finish Clockwork Princess I will add this series to my to-read list.
Outlander by Diana Gabaldon – I have heard a ton of great things about this series, but have never started it. Travelling back in time, Scotland, intrigue, romance – how can I go wrong?
Miss Marple by Agatha Christie – I’m a lover of mysteries and have never spent any real time with the queen of mystery! I picked up a bunch of her books at a used book sale a couple of years ago and keep meaning to start working my way through them – they’re not too long so it shouldn’t be too hard!
Stone Barrington by Stuart Woods – I like a lot of the books in this genre – mystery/thrillers with a recurring character – good quick reads that are entertaining. I know that this series is popular in my library with folks that like many of the authors that I do, so it’s probably worth a try.
Song of Fire and Ice by George R.R. Martin – I’m generally not a huge reader of fantasy, but given the popularity of the HBO series (which I have not seen), I would like to give the first book a try and see how it goes.
Divergent by Veronica Roth – A dystopian series that looks interesting and I hear positive things, I just need to follow my own rules and wait until the last book is released in October!