"The Whiiiiiiiite Whale!"

I've heard people speak of books reverently as their "White Whale" (to quote Melville's Moby-Dick) or "Mount Everest."  When I thought about it, I really couldn't come up with a book that was my own personal goal.  I try not to think of books as challenges.  I mean, it seems pretty commonsense, here -- you don't like a book, you put it down and stop reading it.  Outside of school, reading shouldn't be forced, it should be enjoyable, right?

Until last night.  Having finished my latest Alison Weir, I rifled through my bookshelf, in search of something new, and found the dusty hardback book my father loaned me over a year ago.

And I have found my Everest.

A History of the English-Speaking Peoples, by Winston Churchill (yes, the Winston Churchill)

I can't put it down, guys.  It's a history book, yes -- a work of nonfiction, probably "dull as tombs" (to quote Louisa May Alcott) to most people.  But it is a work of beauty.  Churchill's prose is phenomenal, as rich as his formal speeches were (and do not even try to tell me that he didn't write those -- unless you want to tell me he hired a ghostwriter to do this, too, and then maybe we'll talk.

The work is long -- four volumes, with three "books" each.  I'm currently working on Volume I "The Birth of Britain", and I'm in Book Two, "The Making of the Nation", Chapter Three, "Coeur de Lion" (about Richard the Lionheart).  Book One, about the Roman invasion of Britain and the Celts and Boadicea, was an odyssey, and one I'm glad to be done with.  I figure this series is going to take me the better part of 2011 to finish -- but I'm glad to be getting through it, and I'll be richer for the experience!

What's your "White Whale" or "Mount Everest"?