Birgit at The Book Garden is hosting the second edition of the TEA & BOOKS Reading Challenge! This challenge was inspired by C.S. Lewis’ famous words, “You can never get a cup of tea large enough or a book long enough to suit me.”
In this challenge you will only get to read … books with more than 650 pages!

• You may pick both fiction and non fiction books!
• Contrary to last year short story collections, anthologies or collected works in one volume are now allowed!
• Re-reads will now also be ok (though preferably you should read one of those unread tomes that have been collecting dust on your shelves)!
• Last year you had to read 700+ pages but for 2013 it has reduced to 650+ pages.
• And as a little incentive – books with more than 1,200 pages will count for two books (so theoretically you can read four such super-chunksters to reach the Sencha Connoisseur level)!
• Last but not least – no large print editions of a book, please!

• 2 Books – Chamomile Lover
• 4 Books – Berry Tea Devotee
• 6 Books – Earl Grey Aficionado
• 8 or more Books – Sencha Connoisseur

I have several books to choose from – some that I listed last year and never got round to reading. I had no idea I had so many books of over 650 pages! Here they are in ascending page number order:

1. Into Temptation by Penny Vincenzi (654 pages)
2. The Lacuna by Barbara Kingsolver (670 pages)
3. Of Human Bondage by Somerset Maugham (704 pages)
4. Dreams of Innocence by Lisa Appignanesi (712 pages)
5. This Thing of Darkness by Harry Thompson (750 pages)
6. Helen of Troy by Margaret George (755 pages)
7. Mary Queen of Scots by Antonia Fraser (758 pages)
8. Long Walk to Freedom by Nelson Mandela (769 pages)
9. No Name by Wilkie Collins (784 pages)
10. Nicholas Nickleby by Charles Dickens (800 pages)
11. Martin Chuzzlewit by Charles Dickens (800 pages)
12. The Mitfords: Letters between Six Sisters edited by Charlotte Mosley (834 pages)
13. Little Dorrit by Charles Dickens (848 pages)
14. The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas (894 pages)
15. Parade’s End by Ford Madox Ford (906 pages)
16. Ulysses by James Joyce (944 pages)
17. The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett (1088 pages)

I’m just aiming to read four of them (last year I read just 3 books of over 700 pages each). I’d like to think I’ll read more than four of these books next year, but I’m being realistic – I do want to read other books and I can’t see myself reading more than one of them a month! I’m not deciding in which order I’ll be reading them – it has to be a spontaneous decision at the time.

This challenge will also contribute towards the Mount TBR Challenge, as I’ve owned these books for some time (years in some cases).