Well, I'm going to dive in and start reading Vikram Seth's A Suitable Boy. I couldn't resist sharing the start of my year-long journey. This is what the first 25 pages of a 1,474 page book look like. August 7, 2013 is my official start date. We'll see what it looks like a year from now (or thereabouts).
Dovegreyreader has proposed reading this over the course of the year. She plans on beginning to discuss the book--parts one and two (a mere 138 pages) next month with the idea of reading between 100-150 pages each month. Surely an achievable goal? As long as I can stick with it. Me and chunky books have not gotten on well for the last few years, but I am ever hopeful (and I still want to try and finish reading The Quincunx . . . a mere 800 pages . . . still this year--slow progress is better than no progress, right?).
The book is set in India in the 1950s with a storyline worthy of Jane Austen--Lata Mehra is the heroine and her widowed mother is trying to find a suitable boy for her to marry. Of course I expect this to be a sweeping family drama and all set against the upheaval of a changing India.
So far, so good. Those first twenty-five pages were easy and absorbing reading, so I should have no problem finishing those first two sections on time. I suspect I will read along but do more lurking than participating but it's nice to know there are others out there reading it, too.
Expect (hopefully anyway) to see that bookmark traveling through the pages of the book over the course of the coming year!