As I alluded in my Reading Resolutions post last week, you can expect more posts on extremely long, heavy, doorstop quality book in the coming year. Even as recently as last night, while I blazed through a short, excellent novel, I questioned my motivation for this undertaking. I read constantly and I generally feel that I read "enough," so that's not the reason. I'm also someone who gets an immense amount of satisfaction from finishing a book and crossing it off a list, so a 1,000-page novel is not the most efficient way to satisfy this need.

Part of it is certainly an ego thing; I consider myself to be well-read and I even take the time to maintain a blog about my reading habits, so I'm going to read the books that I know I, of all people, should be reading. I've also had the good fortune of generally being really pleased with any long novel I've taken the time to finish, so I don't feel like I'm undertaking something completely unpleasant. And finally, I have always read many different books at once, so by committing to a long novel, I'm not necessarily giving up all other, shorter books in the meantime; I'll just be spending less time with those.

I kicked around a few different ideas before finally settling on War and Peace. I've never read Atlas Shrugged and I sort of want to, but I don't want anyone to mistake me for an actual, literal Ayn Rand fan. I also thought about Infinite Jest, but in some ways it feels wrong to undertake such a modern behemoth when there are many older, canonical books still going unread by me. I read Anna Karenina with my book club two years ago and really loved it (more on that in a future post), and as far as extremely long classics go, War and Peace is definitely genre-defining. Plus it's cold and snowy outside, so a Russian novel seems more appropriate than, say, In Search of Lost Time, which feels very springy to me. Maybe I'll take on that challenge if me and War and Peace make it through winter together. If nothing else, I'm motivated by the fact that the enormous novel is essential to the structural integrity of a half-full bookshelf designated for Russian literature (half-full because I hate Russian literature but feel a sense of obligation to keep trying).

I hope some of you will be equally motivated and try reading along with me. Expect a post on War and Peace every Wednesday until I finish it (even if that means I have to write a post in which I admit I read none of it because I had too many episodes of 'The Fosters' to get caught up on).

Okay, okay. But hear me out-- there are really only two authors I read that I would consider "guilty pleasures." There's no good reason to ever feel guilty about reading, even if it's strictly for pleasure. But when you read something that is not only pleasurable but also just plain bad and bad for you, then you might be justified in feeling some guilt. For me, that's George R.R. Martin and Ayn Rand. I'm not sure either one needs much explaining, but the Game of Thrones books (or Song of Ice and Fire books if you're a nerd) are pretty violent and misogynistic, and I normally can't abide genre fiction, but those books just sucked me in.

Ms. Rand on the other hand, is a bad writer and sort of an immoral person, which is why I felt so guilty reading The Fountainhead. which I'm still embarrassed to admit I gulped down in a week. I read it immediately after finishing grad school, when I had lots of time on my hands and was depressed about my employment prospects. I wanted to read something huge, for its own sake, and I picked The Fountainhead. I knew going into it that I had missed the boat-- I was way too old to be indoctrinated into the cult of Ayn Rand, but that almost made it even more pleasurable. It is so silly and the prose is just obnoxiously, deliciously overwrought. Nora Ephron has a terrific essay on it, probably some of the best literary criticism on Ayn Rand I've read, and there are more posts on Nora Ephron coming up, so I highly recommend you check it out.

I read Anthem in high school with the delusional idea that I would submit an essay for the Ayn Rand Institute essay contest, which now that I think about it-- Why are we letting them insert themselves into public education in this way?! But anyway, I never wrote an essay, because I thought the book was pretty dumb-- but I still raced through it and kinda secretly enjoyed it.

I haven't yet read Atlas Shrugged but I have every intention of doing so, again, partially just for the sake of reading a gigantic book. I've already been considering what will happen after #ReadWomen2014 is over (chronologically, that is. Reading women will never actually stop for me), and reading enormous books for the blog is one idea I've been tossing around. I will obviously need to start reading much, much faster in that case, but Atlas Shrugged would definitely make the cut.

If schadenfreude is more your cup of tea, try a good biography of Ayn Rand, which will provide plenty of anti-Rand ammunition. As obnoxious as her belief system was, she was still a pretty fascinating public figure, so this is more on the pleasure side, less of the guilt.

For those who reject my premise of Ayn Rand as guilty pleasure altogether -- here is George Saunders mocking Ayn Rand, which is just pure pleasure in every sense and another ringing endorsement for George Saunders.