The Terror of Knowing

If you’ve been around the blog for any length of time, you will have discerned that I’m quite a fan of a readathon and I’m even more so a fan of Tome Topple as it ditches the frenzied nature of many readathons to instead focus on the longer, weightier books on your TBR. The last Tome Topple round I participated in was back in August 2017 and it has been very much missed by me so I was delighted to see Sam was bringing it back for the end of June.

For those who don’t know, Tome Topple is fortnight-long readathon in which the goal is to focus on reading “tomes”, i.e. books of 500 pages (or so) in length. It was created by Sam from the brilliant Thoughts on Tomes but she now has a whole gang of co-hosts to help run the readathon and keep us all enthused and reading. This round, round 6, will be taking place from 12:00am in your timezone on 29th June until 11:59pm on 12th July. There are also some reading challenges which you can use to help shape your TBR but I’ve mostly ignored these for this round… you’ll see why soon so I don’t think it’s too much of a problem. For even more info, you can check out the readathon’s Twitter page or see Sam’s announcement video. Otherwise, let’s take a look at what I plan to read…

War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy

I have an embarrassing confession: I was actually reading War and Peace during the last Tome Topple (see my Tome Topple #4 TBR for the shameful evidence), and yet I still haven’t finished it months later. At the time, I was taking part in Laura from Reading In Bed‘s summer readalong called the War and Peace Newbies Readalong (I did a whole series of summary posts of what I did read, for anyone curious) but I fell off the wagon when I went on holiday near the end so I never finished the book. And then I lost all momentum I gained by reading it along with other people. And here we are now, practically a year later, and I still haven’t managed to finish this bloody thing. I have something like 300ish pages of it left (out of 1500!) but I think we can all agree that Tome Topple would be the perfect time to finally finish off this tome, especially since I want to join in with Laura’s big summer readalong this year too.

The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas

Remember that big summer readalong I said Laura was doing? Yeah, The Count of Monte Cristo is the book she chose for this year, and I’m actually really excited to join in and pick it up, as it would have otherwise taken me years to do so off my own back. The readalong starts on 2nd July, so that crosses over with quite a large portion of Tome Topple as well. I know next to nothing about this book – something about a wrongfully imprisoned man who gets out of jail and comes into money and then sets about to get revenge on those who accused him? (That sounds like the start of Les Misérables so is this just something that French authors like writing about? I mean, admittedly Valjean goes on more of the redemption arc than the revenge arc but…) Digression aside, I’m really excited to take part in another chunky book readalong (I posted my sign-up post last night, if you missed it) and I hope to keep up with fun weekly posts summarising what I’ve read, like I did for War and Peace, but maybe this time I’ll actually finish the book?

A Reaper at the Gates by Sabaa Tahir

I know what you’re thinking, Emma, two books is definitely enough. However, since neither of these books will be consumed in their entirety in Tome Topple, I’d feel deceitful if I didn’t include on this TBR a tome I was intending to read cover-to-cover during the course of the readathon itself. So here we are, and here I am thinking rather optimistically that I’m going to read A Reaper at the Gates, the third book in the Ember Quartet, by Sabaa Tahir. I’ve recently re-read An Ember in the Ashes, and am in the midst of finally getting around to A Torch Against the Night. Providing I finish that second book by the time Tome Topple starts, I would like to then maintain that momentum with this series and move straight onto the newly released third book. I’m slightly fudging the rules since it’s not quite 500 pages but what’s 10-20 pages here and there between friends? I’ll probably be listening to this on audiobook too so I’m not going to worry myself over that, the book is going to be dramatic and heart-wrenching enough, I’d imagine.

So, that’s it, that’s my (sort of) Tome Topple TBR. As you can see, I’ve paid little attention to the challenges or even to the rules of the readathon (they’re more guidelines than actual rules, to paraphrase Captain Barbossa), but I’m going to take part and read some tomes all the same. Are you taking part in the readathon? What are you planning to read? Let me know below and we can cheer each other on during Tome Topple!

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