helpfulsnowman's picture
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helpfulsnowman from Colorado is reading But What If We're Wrong? by Chuck Klosterman June 17, 2017 - 3:25pm

I'm reading Stephen King's IT for a book club, and holy hell this thing is long. I'm digging it so far, but damn it's long.

What's the longest book you've ever read? How long did it take? What are your memories about reading? Not so much about the book itself, but...what's different about reading something super long?

 

Thuggish's picture
Thuggish from Vegas is reading Day of the Jackal June 18, 2017 - 9:20pm

If we're not talking literal length, the longest I can remember reading was Fahrenheit 451. Few years ago now, I remember I could barely will myself to pick it up. Just a meandering snooze fest to me...

jyh's picture
jyh from VA is reading whatever he feels like June 19, 2017 - 11:02am

I think Bolaño's 2666 is the longest novel I've read. Word count is shy of 300k. (It is reported to be nearly 450k.) 2666 is broken up into five distinct parts, which made the length less noticeable. I sometimes had doubts as to how the author considered the whole thing to be one novel; there were explicit and suggested connections between the interior volumes, but the author's other works display such connections even though they're not claimed to be installments of a single novel. Or maybe he operated as though all his fiction was part of one big work, even if the others weren't labeled as such at publication.

Generally, I like the idea of very long novels more than my real interactions with them would suggest.

Dwayne's picture
Dwayne from Cincinnati, Ohio (suburbs) is reading books that rotate to often to keep this updated June 20, 2017 - 4:42pm

Probably Altas Shrugged. 561,996 words.

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voodoo_em from England is reading All the books by Ira Levin June 21, 2017 - 1:13am

Probably IT for me too. I was 15 so I had oddles of free time to read so although it was long I don't think it would feel as long as it would if I read it today when I have way less free time. Plus at 15 I hadn't discovered minimalism :)

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smithreynolds from Spokane, WA USA is reading The writing on the wall. June 21, 2017 - 6:53am

Stephen King's INSOMNIA. I had insomnia, and I wanted a great big long book to read in the night....It was long and great for about halfway through and then it started to fall apart. I think I quit at about 3/4 through. Made me so mad I didn't read King for quite a while after that.

Thuggish's picture
Thuggish from Vegas is reading Day of the Jackal June 21, 2017 - 8:46am

Atlas shrugged is THAT long?

Dwayne's picture
Dwayne from Cincinnati, Ohio (suburbs) is reading books that rotate to often to keep this updated June 21, 2017 - 12:09pm

Yeah

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bethwenn from Milwaukee is reading The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann June 22, 2017 - 6:37am

Most of the long ones I've read were around 1,000 pages. I finished Infinite Jest last year, about 1,000-1,100 pages with the footnotes. I read it for a class so we did it in under a semester, 3ish months. War and Peace and The Brothers Karamazov are both on my shelf begging me to pick them up again soon.

 

"It was long and great for about halfway through and then it started to fall apart"

I read that one too. It totally falls apart. I loved it and then the end was very disappointing. I feel like King struggles with endings for his longer works.

Thuggish's picture
Thuggish from Vegas is reading Day of the Jackal June 22, 2017 - 5:27pm

Isn't he a discovery writer? Totally makes sense.

helpfulsnowman's picture
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helpfulsnowman from Colorado is reading But What If We're Wrong? by Chuck Klosterman July 18, 2017 - 5:48pm

Well, I managed to finish IT in time for my book club. It was pretty good, but damn was it long.

I'm thinking of putitng a column together regarding methods for reading really long books. Got any tips I might include? Ways you get yourself through, really plow through a long-ass book?

Thuggish's picture
Thuggish from Vegas is reading Day of the Jackal July 18, 2017 - 9:54pm

I hear Brandon Sanderson's Way of Kings is so big that it's approaching the limit of the machines' ability to put into a single book.

Dwayne's picture
Dwayne from Cincinnati, Ohio (suburbs) is reading books that rotate to often to keep this updated July 27, 2017 - 12:50am

Machine single book? Like binding?

Thuggish's picture
Thuggish from Vegas is reading Day of the Jackal July 27, 2017 - 11:14pm

I think it had something to do with binding, yeah. It can literally only have so many pages stuck together.

helpfulsnowman's picture
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helpfulsnowman from Colorado is reading But What If We're Wrong? by Chuck Klosterman July 30, 2017 - 3:45pm

I've seen more than a few books where the weight of pages is too high, so by the time you get to the middle it's essentially pulling itself apart. So sometimes it's possible to bind the book initially, and it'd work as long as you never opened and read it. 

Dwayne's picture
Dwayne from Cincinnati, Ohio (suburbs) is reading books that rotate to often to keep this updated August 1, 2017 - 12:30am

That is such a scum thing to do.

Thuggish's picture
Thuggish from Vegas is reading Day of the Jackal August 3, 2017 - 5:57pm

Maybe they just used the cheaper glue

Dwayne's picture
Dwayne from Cincinnati, Ohio (suburbs) is reading books that rotate to often to keep this updated August 6, 2017 - 1:12pm

That is such a scum thing to do.

OtterMan's picture
OtterMan from New Jersey, near Philadelphia USA is reading Ringworlds Children August 14, 2017 - 11:37am

I don't know if it counts because it's technically a trilogy but, Asimov's Foundation series has to be the longest book I've ever read. I did read it as one book. 

Thuggish's picture
Thuggish from Vegas is reading Day of the Jackal August 19, 2017 - 3:23pm

^

Oh, if that counts, mine might be the Unwind series, which I read like a book, which, including the short story, has... 470k words. FInished in a week flat.

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samiwhiskur from Saint Cloud, Minnesota August 24, 2017 - 11:17am

Gone With the Wind. I don't know how many pages it was/is, but at the time (high school), I was going through most books in 2-3 days; Gone With the Wind took me a month and a half. It didn't help that I found reading through all the detail extremely tedious.

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Will Bernardara Jr. from Detroit is reading Snuff: Real Death and Screen Media September 16, 2017 - 10:57pm

I'd say Infinite Jest because I read it twice but the real answer is A Remembrance of Things Past by Proust. All 3,000 or so pages of it.

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jwdonley from Bellingham, WA is reading The Weird: A Compendium of Strange and Dark Stories September 29, 2017 - 12:31pm

Imajica by Clive Barker was a doozy.

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Jose F. Diaz from Boston is reading Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel October 6, 2017 - 6:13am

Single book: Maybe Atlas Shrugged.

Longest Series: Wheel of Time by Robert Jordan/finished by Brandon Sanderson

David Gillette's picture
David Gillette from Tustin, CA is reading Transmetropolitan October 14, 2017 - 9:21pm

1Q84 by Haruki Murakami at 944 pages and 244k words. I enjoyed it quite a bit.

Kedzie's picture
Kedzie from Northern California is reading The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien October 20, 2017 - 1:24am

Gone With The Wind

 

LizKelso's picture
LizKelso from New York City is reading Everything November 9, 2017 - 2:43pm

Sacajawea by Anna L. Waldo (1,427 pages)

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Christopher M Rigby from Auckland, New Zealand is reading On Writing, by Stephen King November 12, 2017 - 5:29pm

Mine would be "Motley Crue - The Dirt" (One of the funniest most entertaining reads ever.  Even if you don't like Motley Crue) at 431 pages.     But as of tonight, when I finish the months long marathon of reading it to my 7 year old daughter,  it will be "The Magic Faraway Tree" trilogy by Enid Blyton, at 676 pages.

I have chosen to go down the path of audio books with larger books such as Stephen King's "The Stand" and  "The Dark Tower" series.    I'm up for a new challenge though, and  have a mint copy of "Sleeping Beauties" by him and his son Owen to move onto text.

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Eric Romm from I'm from California December 5, 2017 - 3:45am

A Clash of Kings by GRRM

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Nick Orman from New Port Richey, Florida is reading Bad Dogs by Nate Southard August 31, 2018 - 10:01am

Under The Dome

B.D. Gallof's picture
B.D. Gallof from Smithtown, NY is reading Rosewater by Tade Thompson September 20, 2018 - 11:42am

"The Complete & Uncut Edition: The Stand" by Stephen King was 1152 pages. 

"Infinite Jest" by David Foster Wallace is 1104 pages

"The Company" by Robert Littell was 900 pages

"The Brothers Karamazov" by Fyodor Dostoevsky was 824 pages

"To Green Angel Tower" by Tad Williams was 1083 (and a disappointing end to a great series)

 

I have "Jerusalem" by Alan Moore to read and that clocks in at 1266 pages. It was far easier to read big tomes when I was single and no kids. ;) 

redraven321's picture
redraven321 from Iron mountain MI is reading The ice twins October 28, 2018 - 7:12pm

The Stand by stephen King.

helpfulsnowman's picture
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helpfulsnowman from Colorado is reading But What If We're Wrong? by Chuck Klosterman October 28, 2018 - 11:11pm

I'm listening to the audiobook of that right now! 

ronin356's picture
ronin356 from Cape Girardeau, Mo is reading Mark Twain November 13, 2018 - 7:48am

Fountainhead. That book was huuuuge.

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JohnWayneBradley from Parts Unknown is reading Star Wars: Aftermath by Chuck Wendig January 28, 2019 - 9:51pm

Les Miserables, Victor Hugo.  Unabridged, 655,478 elegant words.

nfillmore's picture
nfillmore March 12, 2019 - 10:52pm

Anna Karenina on a Kindle at many times magnification because I'm old, quadrupling the number of pages, which aren't numbered or whose number I was never quite sure of because … Kindle.

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thefathouege March 13, 2019 - 2:26pm

Gardens of the Moon, Stephen Erikson. For me, the experience was like trying to commute in rush hour on the central line in London, the amount of characters in the book was giving me flashbacks to the time I was on the carriage and being rammed so close to someone that you've skipped first and second base and gone straight into marriage.

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HemingJr from Kutna Hora is reading You March 13, 2019 - 7:31pm

I listened to Rise and the Fall of the 3rd Reich on 24 hour plane ride to Singapore. Half on the way there, other half on the way back. It was not at all laborious to get through. When it was done, I felt like only two hours had passed. Every new chapter baffled me more and more. 

montag's picture
montag May 10, 2019 - 4:40pm

I'm about two thirds of the way through Infinite Jest (1079 pages), but I've read longer. The Stand by Stephen King, at 1325 pages, is probably the longest I've gotten through, but I've read more than a few books that top out at about 900 to 1000.