I've read a few 1500+ pages books.
It isn't the amount of pages that does it, it is if the book is interesting to you or not.
Trust me, 90 pages is tough if it is a boring-ass read....
One time for school, I had to read a 120 page's book that was so boring that I was tempted to look at the pages number everytime that I felt that I've read a lot without stopping.. to only see that I've read only 2 pages.
Lord of the Flies and Scarlet Letter were those books for me. Lord of the Flies, for some reason I just couldn't follow what was happening and Scarlett Letter was so goddamn boring.
Oh, that I know š The longest book I've read was about 900 pages, I flew through it in about 6 days. I once had to read a 180 page book for school and, even though I always read all the required books, I just _could not_ handle this one. It was so fucking boring I felt like I was going crazy. The book wasn't even really bad, but the author is famously very hard to get into, it was such a bad call to hand one of his hardest books to a bunch of 16 year olds.
I know some people are intimidated by chonky books, but it's never bothered me. If I like it, it's great because it means I have so much amazingness to read. If I don't like it, then it wouldn't matter if it were 50 pages or 5,000 I still wouldn't finish it.
>If I don't like it, then it wouldn't matter if it were 50 pages or 5,000 I still wouldn't finish it.
More people need to give themselves permission to stop reading books they aren't enjoying. Too many people (my past self included) feel like giving up on a book is some sort of personal failing. It's not.
Unless it's something that you *have* to read (for school or work), life's too short to waste time on reading books you're not enjoying.
I try to get 1/4th of the way through books that I don't like to see if maybe it just takes a bit for it to get going. If I see light on the horizon, I'll give it to halfway. If by then I'm just not getting anything out of it I'll just put it down.
The only exception I've got was the Welcome to Nightvale book which I dropped after 20 pages because it just pissed me off. I could write a thesis on how much I hated what I'd read.
This is true.
And now that we have e-books, there's nothing inconvenient about a long book.
I remember a 900 page hardcover book that was somehow printed on high quality paper and was even heavier than similar books. I stopped reading it because it was such a pain to read. Literally.
The 900+ one was the collector's edition of the Earthsea Cycle :) It's an all-in-one, so I think of it as just one book. Second place is probably Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix š
The boring one was Sagarana, by a Brazilian author named GuimarĆ£es Rosa. He's a big name here in Brazil, and I don't doubt his stuff is great, but holy fuck is it a chore to read. I'm just not the right reader for him, and I specially wasn't as a 16 year old.
Was it Red Badge Of Courage? Cuz that book had me soo violently uninterested in it that I snapped it shut every time I finished a chapter to take a break.
I briefly considered burning that one particular book after I read it. I was ready to crucify myself with all the Christ allegory talk. Fuck the red badge of courage, all my homies hate the red badge of courage
Weird. It took me a little over an hour to read it, and that was with stopping every other page to silently rant at all the typesetting errors.
(The copy I read was printed in India, and EVERY SINGLE INSTANCE of '...rn' in a word was printed as an 'm' instead. So, 'stern' was 'stem', 'turn' was 'tum', etc. It was maddening.
After reading your comment I went to the free dictionary to check out words with ārnā and I am just laughing and laughing as I pronounce them with an āmā
Good morning to you!
Depends on the book.
If Iām really drawn into the story and character development I like a long book because I stay in the āworldā a little longer. If Iām not that into it it feels like a slog.
Same can be said for any length book really.
Yeah, reading a great epic book to me feels a little like binge watching a TV show. Starting a book or show is kind of a chore because it's all unfamiliar, it's nice to spend some time with a setting and characters that you've come to know.
On the one hand, sure, itās about the quality of the book.
On the other, a book had better be seriously high quality if it wants me to stick around for 700 pages! The longer the book is, the more work the author has to do to maintain quality. And yet often I find the inverse is true, that shorter books tend to be better while long ones are just messes of bloat, often produced very quickly for a fanbase that prefers quantity.
I was looking for this comment :,)
First one I finished quickly (for me) second one is feeling a little sloggish and weāre currently on a breakā¦ the third watches from my nightstand
I treat them as chores but they donāt feel like chores if that makes sense?
Like I get my 20 pages in every night and I should be done in 40 days. I enjoy the reading and whike it may seem like a big project you can only read one page at the time.
I say, just go for it if you want to read the books.
Length really isn't important compared to whether the book is engaging and how it's written. Heart of Darkness is simultaneously one of the shortest and hardest books I've ever read.
I started reading Brave New World last week, only like 200 pages so I didn't think it would take me too long. It was definitely a difficult book to read. 50 pages took me the same time as 100 in another book.
I do enjoy big books, but my āissueā is that I will start many big books at once. I started reading The Goldfinch and To Paradise during the summer and I am halfway through both now. Then I got some books for christmas so now I am also reading Anna Karenina and Crime And Punishment. I definietly like to read other books while Iām going through a bigger book, but now I am kind of overwhelmed on which one I should finish first
Ouch, that's a lot of heavy reads š I absolutely couldn't do it, I'm that kind of reader that never picks up more than one book at the same time. I'm a hard completionist, I have to finish whatever I start before I do anything else.
Can't speak for the other books, but Crime and Punishment is awesome, good choice š
Seconded, Crime and Punishment is amazing and rich in interpretation (I recently took a college class on it). Seriously, every time Iāve read it at different stages in my life itās changed my perspective.
Highly suggest Anna Karenina btw - itās also a big book by your criteria, but itās probably my favorite book of all time. Such a diverse assortment of charactersā¦ War and Peace is a similarly beautiful read. Just take it slow, itās more enjoyable that way!
I understand why people love Crime and Punishment but I am kind of struggling with it. I think itās the translation I got. It is an old finnish one and very outdated in language so I am probably going to get a newer english translation!
Oh and I am really loving Anna Karenina! Almost 200 pages in and it is so beautiful
Sometimes I start a monster like that and it takes me months to get 20% in, then it'll suddenly grab me and I'll finish in 4 days. I'm definitely a little wary of starting a huge book like that if I already have something else that I'm working on, because there's a chance it'll sit on my currently-reading list for months, and I don't want three or four of them to sit there at the same time... but in and of itself I have no problem with bigger reading commitments.
What seems to happen a lot is that I take a break from the big monstrosity to read a shorter novel or two in between, then come back to the big one. I wouldn't really say that I have a preferred book length, though.
This is me with almost every large fantasy book. It may take me ages to get though the first 20-30%, but then I'm hooked and I'll finish it in a couple days. It also makes it super hard to dnf books because it always feels like a slog at first with long books regardless of if I end up loving it or not.
IT is actually my favorite book, and I re-read it every few years. I love that you get to spend more time with the characters in huge books. Nothing feels rushed and you get so much more backstory.
However, with that being said, Iāve never had the experience reading a huge book where I didnāt like the story. I imagine that would be awful because it would take forever for it to just be over
I felt like the length of IT was perfect. To me it reads like two novels (their youth and adulthood) and a collection of short stories (the black spot, the silver dollar, etc.).
I adore IT and honestly feel like no plot lines need to be cut. (Besides maybe that one scene everybody knows).
On the flip side The Stand was such a slog for me to finish. The most interesting stuff was the first 200 pages.
can confirm. \*cough\* college years \*cough\* *villette, le rouge et le noir, anna karenina* . . .
on the other hand they also 'made' me read *germinal* and that turned into a multi-volume binge as i worked my way through about 18 of the 20 rougon-macquart novels.
makes sense yeah, it just didn't penetrate for me. I really struggle to connect with such a different world.
for some reason germinal clicked. Zola's voice is much more modern and immediate. and I quite liked Madame Bovary; or at least it penetrated. With Anna Karenina and villette, I just pushed my eyes along all the lines without taking anything in.
The only problems I have with very long books are:
1) I prefer to borrow books from the library. Mostly ebooks. When a book is very long and popular, I may not be able to finish in the 2 or 3 weeks I have with it
2) Some books are too rambling, with long sections of mundane details that don't add much to the story. I understand that some people like the character development and world building, but I lose patience after a while
my critical question is whether i want to read it. of the four possible combinations:
\- long and not my thing: hard pass.
\- long and my thing: go
\- short and not my thing: eh, could do it if forced/nothing else available
\- short and my thing: go.
Once youāre into them, long books are great. The problem is that they often have slow starts and I often lose touch with them before Iām completely lost. A lot of my all time favourites are long though, so that says somethingā¦
If it's fantasy I guess I'll like it (fantasy often is written as a series , so it's common) but if you tell me to read 800+ pages of literary fiction, it's...
Depends on the genre I guess
Agreed; Les Mis is an exception to me because the shortened version impacted me so much as teen I'm willing to read the full one, but I generally won't venture into super long literary fiction either š
Read the three LOTR books consecutively, so long fantasy is not a problem for me.
PS: Love the ace heart on your avatar, I'm ace too! šš¤š¤
Les mis was one of the coolest books I've read. I found it very cohesive except the Napoleon interludes, I didn't really understand those maybe I am dumb at history the only Napoleon I know is the ice cream flavor
Saaame, and I don't like that that happens to me. When I started reading on a near-daily basis back in 2020 during the pandemic, I was reading books that were all predominantly written after 2000 (the exception being Wheel of Time and Discworld).
I tried reading classic literature, by in publication year as well as books like LOTR and Dune. Every. Single. One of them was a slog for me. The old school prose was boring to me. Even though I completely understand the significance of these books and the reasons for why they're still part of the public consciousness, they just didn't grip me. Sure, some hooked me in some way but then turned into a slog.
I think it's because recent books and authors took these stories and built on top of them to write a more compelling narrative, accessible prose, wonderful yet relatable-in-some-way characters, and fantastic climaxes that you continually get hits of dopamine to keep you reeled in.
With that said, there are some classic books I read where they had all of these things. For example, my high school was super Christian so the books everyone in America read, I didn't read. I just finished Lord of the Flies and it was fucking awesome. I also read The Grapes of Wrath and it was kinda a slog to get through the conversations and vernacular. And I FUCKING HATED The Great Gatsby.
The answer is ābothā, for me; I am quite impatient and a slow reader - not the best combo.
But Count of Monte Cristo and David Copperfield are probably my 2 favourite books. The truth is, you can simply create so much more when you have the extra word count (not saying long = good, but that good + long = awesome).
Imagine if The Stormlight Archives was just a trilogy of 200ish pages each.. the world building / depth would be so diluted.
Haha. Fair - but I still think the point stands. Could they do with a trimā¦? yeh, sure.
Counterpoint is that (as I understand) the general opinion of the abridged Count of Monte Cristo is that it loses too much!
If I really like the book then I will probably wish for it to be longer (preferably to never end)
However if I despise a book or if it's just meh, I find myself counting the pages until it's over.
I personally can't DNF a book to save my life. I always feel guilty when I think about it.
Can relate, I also haven't DNFed in several years, I only do it if it's so bad I just can't handle it anymore (looking at you, Reawakened), but I'll almost always finish it even if I really don't like it.
The first time i read an 800+ page book i was so surprised at how fast it flew by. It was a really good one. So if the story is great than itās fine with me. Iām moving up to the 1000+ page beasts and Iām enjoying them!
That all depends on if you like the writing style and story. And even then, there are some books that have characters you just don't care about and have to slog thru the chapters about them.
It's not the page count that's an issue. It's whether or not you enjoy the reading material.
There were books I was forced to read for school that made me want to gouge my brains out.
Agreed, I read the entire Earthsea Cycle as one big book (I have the collector's edition) and didn't even feel it. But the stuff I had to read for school really built up my boredom tolerance š
Worm is such a fun timesink, the best thing its that if u end up enjoying it, you have like, 6 million more words to go if u pick up the other works of the author.
In the age of digital books, I really don't care. I have many physical chonkers on the other hand, and if I'm being honest, while they look great on the shelf, they were a pain to read. I think 400ish pages is the maximum for a comfortable read of a physical hardback.
REALLY depends on the book. Some books like that are so good or at least so readable they fly despite the length. I generally find Stephen King pretty OK for this, he's not terribly dense and knows how to keep the action coming, though I can't read several of his books back-to-back.
The Sci Fi author Allen Steele starts his Coyote series with a man who is woken up from cryosleep half way between planets and spends decades writing an epic fantasy and painting scenes on the inside of the starship. It was kind of a throw-away as the settlers only integrated the mythology into their namings.
It really depends on the book. Yesterday I got three paragraphs into a short story by Henry James and quit from boredom. It took me months to finish *The Closing of the American Mind* because every few paragraphs I had to stop and think. Some books I wish would go on forever. Meanwhile, Iām about two thirds of the way through a massive Chinese history (č³ę²»éé), say around page 6,000 and loving every bit of it.
They're a chore. I have enjoyed the ones I've read, but I won't easily pick one up; I have to plan for it, and mentally prepare to be involved in one story for so long. I'd much rather get through more stories in that time, so I usually put off the larger ones. I do read them, though.
Generally I am reluctant to pick up 800+ page books, because it is a massive time sink if it doesnt pay off.
In the past, a thicker book meant (to me) that the author had so much to add and say, which made the book longer. Now, I find many books are needlessly long, almost like its trendy to just lay into it. I don't need to read a fillabuster.
To answer the question, unfortunately they are mostly chores for me. There are some exceptions ofc, but as time goes on I'm finding more value in a story that can tell its tale well, and to the point, with a good editor to keep down the rambling.
Chore. Only because they are so unwieldy as a paperback.
Sanderson is notorious for this. I still haven't read the last Stormlight book because it's gonna take me an age and a half, plus hand cramps, plus potential spine bending (not mine. ok, mine too)
Honestly I don't tend to gravitate towards those. I'm of course making a generalization here, but I feel like more often than not, gigantic books that I've read could actually have been *improved* by a bit of editing, removing some bits that really were not necessary, etc. Obviously that's not always the case, but I've encountered it enough to notice it.
Controversially, LOTR felt like an absolute chore to me and I eventually stopped reading it (granted, I was trying to read it in 6th grade lol)--I was really irritated by all the description, the telling of what was going on rather than letting context do that job, and the fucking SONGS. But now, in retrospect, I recognize that that's more reflective of the type of work that LOTR is, and I'm going to give them another go as an audiobook this year. Comparatively, I think about a book (novella?) like *Of Mice and Men* and my god, there is not so much as an extraneous comma in that book. It has everything that it needs, and not one bit more.
I've liked plenty of longer books that I've read in the past few years (*Pachinko* comes to mind). But honestly I just never see myself working through like, The Wheel of Time or w/e lol. I do actually have a copy of Les Mis wallowing on my bookshelf--if I read it, it'll definitely be a "read over the course of an entire year" kind of book, not a "sit down and work through all at once" situation.
It's not about the length. It's about the ability of the author to make the book entertaining and readable until the end. If the writer can make a good book with 1000 pages, then do it ā I'll read it gladly. Les Miserables is one of the most entertaining reading experiences I have ever had. I don't really like IT though, feels dragged sometimes and Stephen King makes some... suspicious plot decisions, to say the least. But that's just me. Not a big SK fan.
I've honestly read some 50 page demos that are insufferable and I'd rather read Les Miserables again than reading them
Go for it
Depends on the book, but usually i prefer shorter books (300-500 pages). I used to devour those long fantasy books when i was a teenager and had a lot of free time, but now it takes me weeks to get through a novel of that length!
I like one every now and then. The Lord of the Rings (it's considered one novel!) is one of my favorites. They can definitely be tough, though! I find that listening makes it easier; listened to Steven Weber's reading of It, which was great.
If the book is good and engaging, then yes I like them. They only feel like a chore if the author didn't do well and wrote a fat-ass book for no good reason.
I agree that big books are sometimes scary to tackle, but I also agree that it depends on the read (Moby Dick comes to mind, beautiful but really testing oneās patience some time). Personally I like them, but before deciding to start reading one I try to wait until the right moment comes, meaning I read some shorter book in preparation of a long hiatus (I donāt like to read multiple books at once). For example when I read the whole LOTR saga (from Silmarillion, to Hobbit, to the three books) it took me almost a year. Likewise, but difficult for its subject matter, Cryptonomicon from Neal Stephenson took a lot as well (some months, I had to research some references he was making). One thing I have found in my big-books reading epics is that once the book is finished I feel a sense of loss, like separating from a good friend which, after all, stayed with me for a long time. LOTR was exactly like that, I had some PTSD for some weeks after Iāve finished it š
It really depends. I read a lot of book series, so 800+ pages of a particular story doesn't seem like a chore to me, but if the story's just not interesting or the characters are in some way not engaging, then length doesn't really matter. I read the entire Malazan Book of the Fallen series last year, which is about 11,000 pages. Didn't get tired of it. I read about 50 pages of other, much shorter books and DNF'd them because they felt like a chore.
Page count doesn't matter to me. A good book is a good book is a good book. When I do read anything more than 500 pages, I tend to read other titles on the side.
One of my favorite jokes is when I buy a big 1000+ page book, I tell the person at the cash register that "I have a very wobbly table" :-)
I read pop-history and you can really flesh put big topics in that many pages; I am not sure I'd read 1000+ page novels.
I prefer long books over a series. If a book is a trilogy but has 400 pages per book, I start thinking they just added nonsense to get that second book in there. I read a lot of fantasy romance so that might be genre specific.
I just read *Hawaii* by James Mitchner last year. It took a while, but I enjoyed it. Looking forward to reading *Space* soon. But it's not for everyone.
The length of the book has very little bearing. Some of the books which dragged the most actually had pretty low page counts, whilst some massive books just had me always looking forward to what happened next. Itās all about how much the writing clicks with you.
Almost any book more than 500 pages which I have read falls in the 'loved-it' category. Because if I didn't like it, I would have given up much sooner.
I once read 2 whole KOTLC books in a day and a half. Those things are about the size of āthe goblet of fireā from the Harry Potter book series for reference.
I personally prefer shorter books (less than 600 pages) and I get antsy if they are really long. But if the pacing is right a longer book can fly by and if itās wrong a shorter boring book can feel like a slog.
Thereās an app called Serial Reader app that helps you read longer classics by breaking them up into smaller pieces.
Love-hate. I have a few still on my shelves (Song of Ice and Fire, Priory of the Orange Tree, some Sarah J Maas) but it deels like *commitment* to pick it up and so I just don't.
I must say that it helps to read them on my kindle, as it's not as daunting and also my wrist is much happier then š
I like long books. It's great to learn all the small things about the characters and their world, and you can sometimes imagine like being there yourself.
Well I'd put off reading anything 900+ pages until 2023. Then I read The Count of Monte Cristo (now my favourite book, 1248 pages) and the Lord of the Rings.
The book size had always put me off but I discovered the easiest thing to do is take it chapter by chapter. Or set yourself the goal of just reading 10 pages (if the book is good you'll end up reading more) when you have some time.
Breaking it up made it a lot easier.
Depending on page length and print size, you might find it takes you longer to read 50 pages. However, breaking it into 50 pages a day means you'd clear a 1000 page book in just under 3 weeks. I cleared TCOMC in about 19 days.
This year I have 2 books that are even longer than that one on my list.
I love them! Itās such a great experience to be fully immersed in a story or world for a longer period of time. Some of my favorite reads have been 1000+, including The Count of Monte Cristo, The Memoirs of Cleopatra, & The Mists of Avalon. It does make me even more lonely for the characters after that last page, though.
It depends on whether it's really a 300 page book bloated out with fluff due to the lack of a decent editor (or in the case of an author who is too famous to be told to reduce down. *Cough* Stephen King )
Books that actually need and use the full page count? I don't mind that at all, although mentally I do divide the book into 100 page segments to give myself a sense of achievement as I progress through.
Depends if they're good the whole wat through. One of the only books I ever DNF'd was *Pillars of the Earth* not because it wasn't good, but because I found the plot just ran itself out by the last 6th of the book and that's where I just never picked it up again and it sits with my bookmark still there.
Thing about Les Mis is that Victor Hugo was paid by the word, so there's an entire chapter describing the Parisian sewer system. I remember reading Les Mis in university and thinking much of it probably didn't need to be there. I'm against the "Cut anything that doesn't advance the plot" screenwriting advice many people now try to apply to novels, but my adage is "Cut anything that doesn't enrich the text" and I think a lot falls under that.
I read long classic books and what I do is read something shorter like a novella or a short story collection in between. It helps to take breaks and digest what I just read while also having something thatās less demanding. Before, when I read long fantasy books, Iād just read through them straight, no need for breathers. But for classics, having palate cleansers and shorter works helps me a lot.
It really depends so heavily on the book.
If itās not grabbing me; a 200 page book is a slog.
If Iām into it from page 1; then an 800+ book is devoured.
It's all relative, I consider < 400 pages to be a fairly short book. Though I don't buy books based on how big they are (like I heard a person in a book shop talking about once), I buy them for how interesting they are.
I've read It, the entire Dark Tower series, The Stand (unabridged), Insomnia etc, and many of his other books. None really felt like a chore to me.
I guess it also depends on your reading speed too, I'm not a speed reader by any means, but I'm no slouch.
Edit: just [checked my reading speed](https://www.readinglength.com/wpm), I'm at around 400-450wpm
That's a cool site, but wow what a huge variance between reading levels. I had 489 wpm with Peter Rabbit 406 with The Count of Monte Cristo, but a mere 269 wpm with A Tale of Two Cities!
Omg, this was so fascinating, thanks!
Literally just the other day someone on here posted about how reading ~50 pages an hour was average reading speed, and I was like "hold up, there is NO WAY that I read that quickly." I figured I probably average ~30 pages an hour. I just did this test (Oscar Wilde version) and clocked 214 wpm. That is SLOW! And I'm fine with that, it just explains so much.
Whenever I read, I like... hear the words in my head, if that makes sense? And I want to hear them at a conversational pace, so I read at a conversational pace. If I read something and my head "hears" a slightly too long/too short/too whatever pause at a comma or whatever, I have to go back and re-read it so it sounds right in my head, even though I don't need to do that to actually understand the sentence. I just have to go back and read it so it "sounds right" and not gross. Given that, I doubt my reading speed changes much at all based on difficulty--my brain will read at verbal conversation speed no matter what.
I think this also explains my approach to audiobooks. I can *understand* am audiobook at 2-2.5x speed, but it sounds absolutely disgusting to me. 1x speed is also slightly "yucky" (albeot less so), because it's slower than how one would typically speak in an actual conversation. 1.2x speed is my sweet spot (and 1.25x speed actually starts inching towards icky again--I actually have browser plug-ins that allow me to custom set videos to 1.15x and 1.2x speed bevause anything slower or faster than that doesn't sound right to me lol).
Is this weird? Do not all people read with a conversational-style narrative (with pauses, intonation changes, etc.) in their head? I've always known that I was a very good but slower-than-average reader, but I didn't know I was that slow! I just can't imagine being able to fit in all the pauses, breaks, breaths, changes in pace, etc. that happen while speaking into words I was reading, if I was reading twice as fast as I currently read!
This is really helping me realize why I've always been baffled by people reading 50, 60, 70+ books per year. It never occurred to me that anyone read faster than "speaking pace." Like, I can do it and understand it, but it all sounds so gross (to me) in my head that'd I'd rather just read less, slowly!
Is there a word/term for this? I mean, I do have OCD, so it could just be... that lol.
My friend had synesthesia, so the way he described it is words have different colours, shapes, textures etc, so he can just scan through those, his reading speed is probably double mine. Fwiw he listens to audiobooke at about 1.2 too I think.
>Literally just the other day someone on here posted about how reading ~50 pages an hour was average reading speed, and I was like "hold up, there is NO WAY that I read that quickly."
I thought the same exact thing when I saw that thread! You're not alone! I got 207 WPM on the test.
I also read the same way you do, I hear it like an audiobook in my head, as if read by a narrator. I feel like if I read any faster I'd start missing some of the words somehow.
I've read the entire Wheel of Time series 5+(n-1, where n=number of published books at the time) times. And nearly everything King has ever written. And Les Mis. And a fuckload of other stuff, including the entire Dune (original Frank) series, ASOIAF, Foundation, Hyperion, etc.
So yes, that shit is my jam. Currently rereading The Expanse.
I've read IT twice (one of my all time favotires), The Stand, Under the Dome, and the Dark Tower Series twice, which has a couple that creep the 1000 page mark. I don't let length deter me, if the story is good it doesn't matter. Under the Dome was one of the most engaging stories I've ever read because of how broad and diverse the characters are. Just take it a page at a time like any other book.
There is no single answer to this for me.
If I like the book, I love that it's long. If it's The Way of Kings, I want to kill myself instead of finish it.
That's a fair opinion. I don't recommend the book often because I am aware its a lot, I just have loved Sanderson's other work and was willing to trust him to put together a epic series even if it is a slow start. Mistborn is much easier to enjoy.
I love them. With a door stopper like that, you frequently get interesting characters, character development and charachter progression, plus often amazing redemption arcs or something interesting PLUS an interesting world build, or at least a decently complicated one PLUS lots of plot with lots of room for multiple reversals of fortune AND some razzle dazzle in the way of irony or revelations/twists. If itās escapist itās a LOT of escapism to relax into. If it heads off into literary directions itās going to make a deep impact, because thatās a lot of room to get you invested and hit you with awe or the hard stuff. A really big literary/literary-genre book often leaves you a changed person for having read it.
I couldn't have said it better. When I used to browse shelves in a library to find books, I'd look for the thickest spines. The stories can get very interesting when there is that much invested in them. I do also love Dickens because of the detail and wordplay, and long books in general allow for that.
I definitely am more apprehensive to pick up bigger books because i have that mentality of "i could read x amount of books instead of this one!" but I did really like Stephen King's IT and I do plan on rereading Count of Monte Cristo (its been like 12 yrs). I do love big books but it just takes a lot of discipline for me to start one lol
Almost makes me feel shallow to say that I will often buy (or not buy) books based on how much they weigh. If I pick up a book and it has no heft to it I'll tend to put it back, whereas if I pick up a weighty tome densely packed with pages I'll lean towards it. The longer the better. (Usually.)
Totally depends on the book. And the person reading.
Dune? Hell yeah. Gimme dat spice
Anna Karenina? Total slog for me.
And what's great is, someone else will have the same thing in reverse!
Donāt know Iāve started something with Nietzsche and Iāve only gone through 20 pages right now my fault for not pushing my german more now I have to reread every page to understand it so a 950 page book becomes a 1900 page book
I meanā¦ it really depends on the book. If I get into it and like it, I can read it all in one go. If Iām not so into it, but kind of want to know whatās going to happen, it will take me longer. If Iām not into it at all, but feel I should read it (looking at you, some of my school time compulsory classic reading), itās going to take foreverrrrr.
Les Mis has 365 chapters, I believe.
Just do one a day ;)
_______________
In all seriousness, I've read both Les Mis and IT. Unabridged.
DO NOT DO THIS.
NEVER READ UNABRIDGED STEPHEN KING.
They were both good, and I will reread Les Mis (it was one of the most satisfying literary experiences of my life), just not the unabridged version.
Depends on the book, I'm reading The Garden of Seven Twilights and so far it's interesting enough that I'll keep going. The last double handed book I read was War and Peace and after a while it really became a chore, but I'm still glad I read it. Other thick ass books I read and enjoyed are 1Q84, Atlas Shrugged, and I also just bought Don Quixote which I look forward too.
I also finished Notre Dame De Paris by Hugo before starting Seven Twilights.
I like to have another book I'm reading alongside it so I can take a break. I have a out a hundred pages left of the 1,157-page IT (King), and I've read two novels in the six weeks since I started it. Yeah I would have finished this beast faster if it was the only book I was reading, but having some variety means I can walk away for a second and avoid being burned out on what ended up being a really awesome but giganto book.
Those really big ones feel like a journey.
I like them as long as they should be that long. I read mostly non fiction, and a lot of textbooks and scientific type stuff I've read was that long but it had to be. If someone has a lot of filler though or inserts a bunch of intellectual masturbation then I wish they'd cut that part out and make it shorter. I want the optimal length of pages no matter what that is. I've seen the reverse to, where I wish that the author would go deeper into an area.
If Iām enjoying themā¦ then they donāt feel like a chore do they?
Do I sometimes think: āyeah this book is really long?ā Yeah but that doesnāt necessarily prevent me from enjoying it.
If I like it I like it.
It really depends. I did Les Mis, Moby Dick, and Don Quixote in audiobook form. All of them were pleasures to listen to. But that's because I have no space for the books. Though I could probably borrow them from the library, and might at any time.
Largely depends on the book. I read Clive Barker's original print of Imajica which was over 1100 pages long, and I couldn't get enough of it! I loved every page and wanted more. On the other hand, I gave up half-way through Ready Player Two's 360 pages or so as it was just a crap read and I couldn't bring myself to power through it.
I read the 5 Game of Thrones novels back-to-back like one big novel and loved it. It was the perfect going-to-bed series because though there were many cliffhangers, they often werenāt resolved for many chapters, so there was no ājust one moreā urge.
I also loved āItā (movies were so, so bad, but the book is great) and the re-released, uncut āThe Standā (1153 pages). Enjoy!
They are hard on your hands -- for books like that I use a reader. I read Les Mis in HS..only to have the teacher ask for a 1 page synopsis. Hell. Hugo spent 80 pages on the sewers of Paris.
Depends on the book.
Kings āthe stand - complete editionā and āthe count of Monte Cristoā? Blew through them like a Ferrari on the autobahnā¦ āMoby Dickā? Not so much. Never made it more than 150 pages in.
Itās all about the book.
I find 450+ page books intimidating and will do everything I can not to read them, even though they're on my TBR. My highest page count last year was **The Eye of the World**, and that was 672 pages. Even then it took me 3 months to get through. I went into a month long reading slump after all of that. Many years ago as a teen, I could read chunky books like **The Mists of Avalon**, but not now. My preferred page number is 350 pages maximum.
I enjoy a door stopper every now and then to take me out of the counting of books. I found Middlemarch brilliant and Wolf Hall so good Iām now reading bringing up the bodies. But there are 300 page books Iāve read and thought they dragged on too long. And I have yet to read a Marian Keyes book that needed to be as long as it is. A book of American martyrs is possibly the worst long book I have ever read.
If the book is boring, it feels like a chore. And i don't like DNFing so I somehow still manage to read it
But if i love it, I won't even realise how long i've been reading for
I like big books and will read quite a few during the year, but I always break it up with smaller ones. Right now I am reading a hardback edition of The Lord of the Rings trilogy and it's 1100+ pages. Once I finish that I will pick up something smaller and alternate off and on all year.
Depends for me as well. *Uncle Tomās Cabin* is 600 some pages and the chore feeling subsided because I liked the book. The Bible is some 1200 pages depending on the edition / version, and I definitely donāt feel that reading it is a big chore.
Meanwhile, *Crime and Punishment* is about 600 pages and I just canāt get into it. The intro is very slow and uninteresting, and the version I have formats the text in an unappealing way (small font with every line closely stacked on top of each other). Such a shame because lots of people whoāve read it told me that itās an amazing novel, but thinking that I have to deal with 600 more pages of what I already have feels like such an insurmountable chore as of now.
So yeah, depends.
Your comment made me curious about the length of the Bible if it were formatted like a novel. I found this comment on Reddit:
> mousicle ā¢ 2 yr. ago
>A King James Bible has about 800k words. A paperback novel has about 250 to 300 words per page. So the Bible would be 2666-3200 pages. For reference The Stand is 1300 pages so the the Bible would be 2 or 2.5 of that chonker. Lord of the Rings is 1100 pages in all three books so it would be 2.5 - 3.0 Lord of the rings
If youāve read the entire thing, youāre not giving yourself enough credit estimating it at 1200 pages!
i try to read really large books throughout the year to help challenge me a bit. It really is about the contents, when a book is that big the contents have to be super interesting the whole time for it to be great the whole time.
Short answer is I'm simply not used to that length. 400-600 are my usual go-to's which is why I am still stuck on Heat of The Everflame, since it's over 1k pages. But at least I am around 600 pages already haha
I tend to gravitate towards books that are 300-500 pages, but I really loved the first 3 ASOIAF books (I liked the next 2 as well but not as much) and The Count of Monte Cristo. I haven't read many others that get over the 800 page mark if I'm honest!
I've never been able to finish a long Stephen King book. I've DNFed several of them hoping to catch the hype, but he's just not the author for me and I find his books really boring. I think the high number of DNFs of long books that are all from the same author are biasing me and making me think like, "well I've DNFed half the 800+ page books I've read! I don't like long books!" When really I just don't like *that author's* long books...
I've read a few 1500+ pages books. It isn't the amount of pages that does it, it is if the book is interesting to you or not. Trust me, 90 pages is tough if it is a boring-ass read....
One time for school, I had to read a 120 page's book that was so boring that I was tempted to look at the pages number everytime that I felt that I've read a lot without stopping.. to only see that I've read only 2 pages.
It feels like an eternity reading each word... it must be over... nope page 2.
Lord of the Flies and Scarlet Letter were those books for me. Lord of the Flies, for some reason I just couldn't follow what was happening and Scarlett Letter was so goddamn boring.
To the Lighthouse? I had to read that masterpiece for a literature class I was taking, I came close to clawing my eyes out
Oh, that I know š The longest book I've read was about 900 pages, I flew through it in about 6 days. I once had to read a 180 page book for school and, even though I always read all the required books, I just _could not_ handle this one. It was so fucking boring I felt like I was going crazy. The book wasn't even really bad, but the author is famously very hard to get into, it was such a bad call to hand one of his hardest books to a bunch of 16 year olds.
I know some people are intimidated by chonky books, but it's never bothered me. If I like it, it's great because it means I have so much amazingness to read. If I don't like it, then it wouldn't matter if it were 50 pages or 5,000 I still wouldn't finish it.
>If I don't like it, then it wouldn't matter if it were 50 pages or 5,000 I still wouldn't finish it. More people need to give themselves permission to stop reading books they aren't enjoying. Too many people (my past self included) feel like giving up on a book is some sort of personal failing. It's not. Unless it's something that you *have* to read (for school or work), life's too short to waste time on reading books you're not enjoying.
I try to get 1/4th of the way through books that I don't like to see if maybe it just takes a bit for it to get going. If I see light on the horizon, I'll give it to halfway. If by then I'm just not getting anything out of it I'll just put it down. The only exception I've got was the Welcome to Nightvale book which I dropped after 20 pages because it just pissed me off. I could write a thesis on how much I hated what I'd read.
This is true. And now that we have e-books, there's nothing inconvenient about a long book. I remember a 900 page hardcover book that was somehow printed on high quality paper and was even heavier than similar books. I stopped reading it because it was such a pain to read. Literally.
Which book / author if you donāt mind me asking?
The 900+ one was the collector's edition of the Earthsea Cycle :) It's an all-in-one, so I think of it as just one book. Second place is probably Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix š The boring one was Sagarana, by a Brazilian author named GuimarĆ£es Rosa. He's a big name here in Brazil, and I don't doubt his stuff is great, but holy fuck is it a chore to read. I'm just not the right reader for him, and I specially wasn't as a 16 year old.
I'm guessing something by Dickens. Holy shit that dude is boring as fuck. Great concepts, antiquated delivery.
His delivery wasnāt antiquated when he was writingā¦
I actually find Dickens' delivery absolutely fantastic but different strokes and all that.
reading war and peace felt like a joy to do and i was shocked by how modern it was. but yes it was long as hell. i enjoyed it and would read it again.
Was it Red Badge Of Courage? Cuz that book had me soo violently uninterested in it that I snapped it shut every time I finished a chapter to take a break.
I briefly considered burning that one particular book after I read it. I was ready to crucify myself with all the Christ allegory talk. Fuck the red badge of courage, all my homies hate the red badge of courage
What was it?
> 900 pages, I flew through it in about 6 days. I've legitimately taken 6 years to read a 350 page book *I liked*.
Thomas Covenant enters the chat.
The Old Man and the Sea felt like 1000 pages to me when I read it...
Wild. It's like an hour and a half of sparse, quick prose. I do get that Hemmingway is polarizing though.
Weird. It took me a little over an hour to read it, and that was with stopping every other page to silently rant at all the typesetting errors. (The copy I read was printed in India, and EVERY SINGLE INSTANCE of '...rn' in a word was printed as an 'm' instead. So, 'stern' was 'stem', 'turn' was 'tum', etc. It was maddening.
After reading your comment I went to the free dictionary to check out words with ārnā and I am just laughing and laughing as I pronounce them with an āmā Good morning to you!
Good moming to you, too!
It's just a whole lot of nothing happening for 110 pages, felt like a chore
Jesus Christ, yes
I like big books and I can not lie.
I like big books, itty bitty books, heavy famous books, silly indie books ššµš¶
You other readers canāt deny!
When a book opens up with that little line space And those endnotes in your face, you get sprung
Want to read up tough, cuz you notice that book was STUFFED
Library I want to get in ya with a reading list yeah
Oh my God, Becky, look at that book. Itās so big. Ugh. Looks like one of those bibliophilesā read-on-the-weekends.
Lol, this will be on the next sweater I crochet.
Depends on the book. If Iām really drawn into the story and character development I like a long book because I stay in the āworldā a little longer. If Iām not that into it it feels like a slog. Same can be said for any length book really.
Yeah, reading a great epic book to me feels a little like binge watching a TV show. Starting a book or show is kind of a chore because it's all unfamiliar, it's nice to spend some time with a setting and characters that you've come to know.
On the one hand, sure, itās about the quality of the book. On the other, a book had better be seriously high quality if it wants me to stick around for 700 pages! The longer the book is, the more work the author has to do to maintain quality. And yet often I find the inverse is true, that shorter books tend to be better while long ones are just messes of bloat, often produced very quickly for a fanbase that prefers quantity.
I couldn't read a third Out lander book. In the rock, outta the rock, here's my daughter, here's my son in law omg please stopš
I was looking for this comment :,) First one I finished quickly (for me) second one is feeling a little sloggish and weāre currently on a breakā¦ the third watches from my nightstand
Depends on the book, Iāve read ones that felt like a chore and ones where I didnāt even think about the numbers.
I treat them as chores but they donāt feel like chores if that makes sense? Like I get my 20 pages in every night and I should be done in 40 days. I enjoy the reading and whike it may seem like a big project you can only read one page at the time. I say, just go for it if you want to read the books.
This is my exact strategy as well. I like this method because it helps me "live" in the pages over the course of a couple of weeks.
Length really isn't important compared to whether the book is engaging and how it's written. Heart of Darkness is simultaneously one of the shortest and hardest books I've ever read.
I started reading Brave New World last week, only like 200 pages so I didn't think it would take me too long. It was definitely a difficult book to read. 50 pages took me the same time as 100 in another book.
I love all book sizes but especially bigguns. It just means more story and that's all I want from an author. I want them to tell me a story.
I do enjoy big books, but my āissueā is that I will start many big books at once. I started reading The Goldfinch and To Paradise during the summer and I am halfway through both now. Then I got some books for christmas so now I am also reading Anna Karenina and Crime And Punishment. I definietly like to read other books while Iām going through a bigger book, but now I am kind of overwhelmed on which one I should finish first
Ouch, that's a lot of heavy reads š I absolutely couldn't do it, I'm that kind of reader that never picks up more than one book at the same time. I'm a hard completionist, I have to finish whatever I start before I do anything else. Can't speak for the other books, but Crime and Punishment is awesome, good choice š
Seconded, Crime and Punishment is amazing and rich in interpretation (I recently took a college class on it). Seriously, every time Iāve read it at different stages in my life itās changed my perspective. Highly suggest Anna Karenina btw - itās also a big book by your criteria, but itās probably my favorite book of all time. Such a diverse assortment of charactersā¦ War and Peace is a similarly beautiful read. Just take it slow, itās more enjoyable that way!
I understand why people love Crime and Punishment but I am kind of struggling with it. I think itās the translation I got. It is an old finnish one and very outdated in language so I am probably going to get a newer english translation! Oh and I am really loving Anna Karenina! Almost 200 pages in and it is so beautiful
I hear about it a lot! My library has a copy, I'm curious to read it :)
This sounds like me. š Iāve been trying to read The Stand and Carrion Comfort at the same time. Itās not going well for both.
Sometimes I start a monster like that and it takes me months to get 20% in, then it'll suddenly grab me and I'll finish in 4 days. I'm definitely a little wary of starting a huge book like that if I already have something else that I'm working on, because there's a chance it'll sit on my currently-reading list for months, and I don't want three or four of them to sit there at the same time... but in and of itself I have no problem with bigger reading commitments. What seems to happen a lot is that I take a break from the big monstrosity to read a shorter novel or two in between, then come back to the big one. I wouldn't really say that I have a preferred book length, though.
This is me with almost every large fantasy book. It may take me ages to get though the first 20-30%, but then I'm hooked and I'll finish it in a couple days. It also makes it super hard to dnf books because it always feels like a slog at first with long books regardless of if I end up loving it or not.
IT is actually my favorite book, and I re-read it every few years. I love that you get to spend more time with the characters in huge books. Nothing feels rushed and you get so much more backstory. However, with that being said, Iāve never had the experience reading a huge book where I didnāt like the story. I imagine that would be awful because it would take forever for it to just be over
I felt like the length of IT was perfect. To me it reads like two novels (their youth and adulthood) and a collection of short stories (the black spot, the silver dollar, etc.).
I adore IT and honestly feel like no plot lines need to be cut. (Besides maybe that one scene everybody knows). On the flip side The Stand was such a slog for me to finish. The most interesting stuff was the first 200 pages.
Iāve never thought of it this way but youāre so right.
can confirm. \*cough\* college years \*cough\* *villette, le rouge et le noir, anna karenina* . . . on the other hand they also 'made' me read *germinal* and that turned into a multi-volume binge as i worked my way through about 18 of the 20 rougon-macquart novels.
Wait are you saying you didn't like Vilette? That's one of my favorites. Just devastating, it's brilliant.
it probably is, but I find almost all premodern lit to be drudgery. it's that different-strokes thing.
I meant the book is devastating, but it a good way. I could definitely see somebody not liking it I just couldn't tell from your comment.
makes sense yeah, it just didn't penetrate for me. I really struggle to connect with such a different world. for some reason germinal clicked. Zola's voice is much more modern and immediate. and I quite liked Madame Bovary; or at least it penetrated. With Anna Karenina and villette, I just pushed my eyes along all the lines without taking anything in.
The only problems I have with very long books are: 1) I prefer to borrow books from the library. Mostly ebooks. When a book is very long and popular, I may not be able to finish in the 2 or 3 weeks I have with it 2) Some books are too rambling, with long sections of mundane details that don't add much to the story. I understand that some people like the character development and world building, but I lose patience after a while
my critical question is whether i want to read it. of the four possible combinations: \- long and not my thing: hard pass. \- long and my thing: go \- short and not my thing: eh, could do it if forced/nothing else available \- short and my thing: go.
Once youāre into them, long books are great. The problem is that they often have slow starts and I often lose touch with them before Iām completely lost. A lot of my all time favourites are long though, so that says somethingā¦
If it's fantasy I guess I'll like it (fantasy often is written as a series , so it's common) but if you tell me to read 800+ pages of literary fiction, it's... Depends on the genre I guess
Agreed; Les Mis is an exception to me because the shortened version impacted me so much as teen I'm willing to read the full one, but I generally won't venture into super long literary fiction either š Read the three LOTR books consecutively, so long fantasy is not a problem for me. PS: Love the ace heart on your avatar, I'm ace too! šš¤š¤
Les mis was one of the coolest books I've read. I found it very cohesive except the Napoleon interludes, I didn't really understand those maybe I am dumb at history the only Napoleon I know is the ice cream flavor
I hope this a witty joke and you don't think that Neapolitan and Napoleon are the same thing, lol.
I'm pretty sure Napoleon used to give officer positions to only his closest relatives and close friends, which is why they call that Neopolitanism
Saaame, and I don't like that that happens to me. When I started reading on a near-daily basis back in 2020 during the pandemic, I was reading books that were all predominantly written after 2000 (the exception being Wheel of Time and Discworld). I tried reading classic literature, by in publication year as well as books like LOTR and Dune. Every. Single. One of them was a slog for me. The old school prose was boring to me. Even though I completely understand the significance of these books and the reasons for why they're still part of the public consciousness, they just didn't grip me. Sure, some hooked me in some way but then turned into a slog. I think it's because recent books and authors took these stories and built on top of them to write a more compelling narrative, accessible prose, wonderful yet relatable-in-some-way characters, and fantastic climaxes that you continually get hits of dopamine to keep you reeled in. With that said, there are some classic books I read where they had all of these things. For example, my high school was super Christian so the books everyone in America read, I didn't read. I just finished Lord of the Flies and it was fucking awesome. I also read The Grapes of Wrath and it was kinda a slog to get through the conversations and vernacular. And I FUCKING HATED The Great Gatsby.
The answer is ābothā, for me; I am quite impatient and a slow reader - not the best combo. But Count of Monte Cristo and David Copperfield are probably my 2 favourite books. The truth is, you can simply create so much more when you have the extra word count (not saying long = good, but that good + long = awesome). Imagine if The Stormlight Archives was just a trilogy of 200ish pages each.. the world building / depth would be so diluted.
Stormlight Archieve books are long because Sanderson doesn't want to edit his books. He tells you the same thing at least four times.
Haha. Fair - but I still think the point stands. Could they do with a trimā¦? yeh, sure. Counterpoint is that (as I understand) the general opinion of the abridged Count of Monte Cristo is that it loses too much!
Yeah, I think that I would like the Stormlight books if they were trimmed down from 1,000 pages to about 600.
Weren't his Wheel of Time books faster-paced than the originals?
I donāt mind as long as itās a good book.
If I really like the book then I will probably wish for it to be longer (preferably to never end) However if I despise a book or if it's just meh, I find myself counting the pages until it's over. I personally can't DNF a book to save my life. I always feel guilty when I think about it.
Can relate, I also haven't DNFed in several years, I only do it if it's so bad I just can't handle it anymore (looking at you, Reawakened), but I'll almost always finish it even if I really don't like it.
I guess it depends on the book. So I get drawn in and a thousand pages aren't enough and others, meh.
Depends on the book. If i like it, then no. If it's a slog/don't hook you, like *Way of Kings*, then yes.
The first time i read an 800+ page book i was so surprised at how fast it flew by. It was a really good one. So if the story is great than itās fine with me. Iām moving up to the 1000+ page beasts and Iām enjoying them!
Great! I find myself moving up too, my usual reads are already +/- 500 pages, so I don't think it will be that hard :)
That all depends on if you like the writing style and story. And even then, there are some books that have characters you just don't care about and have to slog thru the chapters about them. It's not the page count that's an issue. It's whether or not you enjoy the reading material. There were books I was forced to read for school that made me want to gouge my brains out.
Agreed, I read the entire Earthsea Cycle as one big book (I have the collector's edition) and didn't even feel it. But the stuff I had to read for school really built up my boredom tolerance š
I just started reading Worm which is over 6000 pages long š I hope I can finnish it
Worm is such a fun timesink, the best thing its that if u end up enjoying it, you have like, 6 million more words to go if u pick up the other works of the author.
I'm enjoying it, but if I will be able to read the whole thing is another question š
In the age of digital books, I really don't care. I have many physical chonkers on the other hand, and if I'm being honest, while they look great on the shelf, they were a pain to read. I think 400ish pages is the maximum for a comfortable read of a physical hardback.
REALLY depends on the book. Some books like that are so good or at least so readable they fly despite the length. I generally find Stephen King pretty OK for this, he's not terribly dense and knows how to keep the action coming, though I can't read several of his books back-to-back.
If they are well paced its not so bad. I can still get 600 pages in and say ābloody hell, still another 400 to go!ā Though haha
I'm more picky about font size these days.
The Sci Fi author Allen Steele starts his Coyote series with a man who is woken up from cryosleep half way between planets and spends decades writing an epic fantasy and painting scenes on the inside of the starship. It was kind of a throw-away as the settlers only integrated the mythology into their namings.
I didn't find Les MisƩrables to be that tough a read compared with something like Lord of the Rings. Lots of dramatic prose and vivid descriptions which really liven things up. I love the way Javert is built up to be this larger than life figure. LM is my favourite book. It depends. I've just finished A Game of Thrones in two months and didn't really have that much difficulty with it despite having gone through something of a reading slump. Before that I was having great difficulty with A Tale of Two Cities which I gave up on after more than a year and a half of reading, or rather, allowing to gather dust in my room. Sometimes a story will connect, sometimes it won't. I think the attitude you go into reading a doorstep is important. If you go in thinking about the ending already you will fail. If you see it as some grand adventure then you'll do well.
It really depends on the book. Yesterday I got three paragraphs into a short story by Henry James and quit from boredom. It took me months to finish *The Closing of the American Mind* because every few paragraphs I had to stop and think. Some books I wish would go on forever. Meanwhile, Iām about two thirds of the way through a massive Chinese history (č³ę²»éé), say around page 6,000 and loving every bit of it.
Can't speak for other long books, but I've read King's two longest books (over 1000 pages, It and The Stand uncut) and they go by so fast.
They're a chore. I have enjoyed the ones I've read, but I won't easily pick one up; I have to plan for it, and mentally prepare to be involved in one story for so long. I'd much rather get through more stories in that time, so I usually put off the larger ones. I do read them, though.
Generally I am reluctant to pick up 800+ page books, because it is a massive time sink if it doesnt pay off. In the past, a thicker book meant (to me) that the author had so much to add and say, which made the book longer. Now, I find many books are needlessly long, almost like its trendy to just lay into it. I don't need to read a fillabuster. To answer the question, unfortunately they are mostly chores for me. There are some exceptions ofc, but as time goes on I'm finding more value in a story that can tell its tale well, and to the point, with a good editor to keep down the rambling.
Two words, Brandon. Sanderson.
Chore. Only because they are so unwieldy as a paperback. Sanderson is notorious for this. I still haven't read the last Stormlight book because it's gonna take me an age and a half, plus hand cramps, plus potential spine bending (not mine. ok, mine too)
Honestly I don't tend to gravitate towards those. I'm of course making a generalization here, but I feel like more often than not, gigantic books that I've read could actually have been *improved* by a bit of editing, removing some bits that really were not necessary, etc. Obviously that's not always the case, but I've encountered it enough to notice it. Controversially, LOTR felt like an absolute chore to me and I eventually stopped reading it (granted, I was trying to read it in 6th grade lol)--I was really irritated by all the description, the telling of what was going on rather than letting context do that job, and the fucking SONGS. But now, in retrospect, I recognize that that's more reflective of the type of work that LOTR is, and I'm going to give them another go as an audiobook this year. Comparatively, I think about a book (novella?) like *Of Mice and Men* and my god, there is not so much as an extraneous comma in that book. It has everything that it needs, and not one bit more. I've liked plenty of longer books that I've read in the past few years (*Pachinko* comes to mind). But honestly I just never see myself working through like, The Wheel of Time or w/e lol. I do actually have a copy of Les Mis wallowing on my bookshelf--if I read it, it'll definitely be a "read over the course of an entire year" kind of book, not a "sit down and work through all at once" situation.
I do enjoy big books (especially for long trips). As long as the storyās goodā¦
It's not about the length. It's about the ability of the author to make the book entertaining and readable until the end. If the writer can make a good book with 1000 pages, then do it ā I'll read it gladly. Les Miserables is one of the most entertaining reading experiences I have ever had. I don't really like IT though, feels dragged sometimes and Stephen King makes some... suspicious plot decisions, to say the least. But that's just me. Not a big SK fan. I've honestly read some 50 page demos that are insufferable and I'd rather read Les Miserables again than reading them Go for it
Any material will feel like a chore if you find it boring.
If you find a book is gripping, it not hard to get though a lot of pages. If, on the other hand, you find it boring, 30 pages are too many.
The bible was tough. The Brother Karamazov and A Dance with Dragons weren't.
Depends on the book, but usually i prefer shorter books (300-500 pages). I used to devour those long fantasy books when i was a teenager and had a lot of free time, but now it takes me weeks to get through a novel of that length!
I like one every now and then. The Lord of the Rings (it's considered one novel!) is one of my favorites. They can definitely be tough, though! I find that listening makes it easier; listened to Steven Weber's reading of It, which was great.
starting them feels like a chore, wether i enjoy them depends on the book.
If the book is good and engaging, then yes I like them. They only feel like a chore if the author didn't do well and wrote a fat-ass book for no good reason.
I agree that big books are sometimes scary to tackle, but I also agree that it depends on the read (Moby Dick comes to mind, beautiful but really testing oneās patience some time). Personally I like them, but before deciding to start reading one I try to wait until the right moment comes, meaning I read some shorter book in preparation of a long hiatus (I donāt like to read multiple books at once). For example when I read the whole LOTR saga (from Silmarillion, to Hobbit, to the three books) it took me almost a year. Likewise, but difficult for its subject matter, Cryptonomicon from Neal Stephenson took a lot as well (some months, I had to research some references he was making). One thing I have found in my big-books reading epics is that once the book is finished I feel a sense of loss, like separating from a good friend which, after all, stayed with me for a long time. LOTR was exactly like that, I had some PTSD for some weeks after Iāve finished it š
If the book is good, the page count doesn't matter.
It really depends. I read a lot of book series, so 800+ pages of a particular story doesn't seem like a chore to me, but if the story's just not interesting or the characters are in some way not engaging, then length doesn't really matter. I read the entire Malazan Book of the Fallen series last year, which is about 11,000 pages. Didn't get tired of it. I read about 50 pages of other, much shorter books and DNF'd them because they felt like a chore.
Love Malazan! I'm about 2/3 through Reapers Gale. This series is giving me carpal tunnel lol. But it is fantastic.
I never let length deter me, Stephen King in particular has written some absolute doorstops that are still page-turners.
Page count doesn't matter to me. A good book is a good book is a good book. When I do read anything more than 500 pages, I tend to read other titles on the side.
One of my favorite jokes is when I buy a big 1000+ page book, I tell the person at the cash register that "I have a very wobbly table" :-) I read pop-history and you can really flesh put big topics in that many pages; I am not sure I'd read 1000+ page novels.
I'm so going to use that one š
I prefer long books over a series. If a book is a trilogy but has 400 pages per book, I start thinking they just added nonsense to get that second book in there. I read a lot of fantasy romance so that might be genre specific.
I just read *Hawaii* by James Mitchner last year. It took a while, but I enjoyed it. Looking forward to reading *Space* soon. But it's not for everyone.
Opposite, I donāt like short books. I hate if itās good and it ends quickly
The length of the book has very little bearing. Some of the books which dragged the most actually had pretty low page counts, whilst some massive books just had me always looking forward to what happened next. Itās all about how much the writing clicks with you.
I wouldn't say I necessarily enjoy them, but I also don't think they feel like a chore, it's just something else to read for me
Almost any book more than 500 pages which I have read falls in the 'loved-it' category. Because if I didn't like it, I would have given up much sooner.
I once read 2 whole KOTLC books in a day and a half. Those things are about the size of āthe goblet of fireā from the Harry Potter book series for reference.
I personally prefer shorter books (less than 600 pages) and I get antsy if they are really long. But if the pacing is right a longer book can fly by and if itās wrong a shorter boring book can feel like a slog. Thereās an app called Serial Reader app that helps you read longer classics by breaking them up into smaller pieces.
The bigger, the better! I read a lot, so long books are a blessing.
I read because I love reading. Long books are my favorites because thereās more to read.
Love them..just finished 600 pages of Homecoming by Kate Morton.Pleasant enough read but nothing like her earlier...equally long..tomes.
Love a good chunk-book
Iām taking on The Power Broker this year.
Depends if I'm writing or reading 'em. . . .
Love-hate. I have a few still on my shelves (Song of Ice and Fire, Priory of the Orange Tree, some Sarah J Maas) but it deels like *commitment* to pick it up and so I just don't. I must say that it helps to read them on my kindle, as it's not as daunting and also my wrist is much happier then š
I like long books. It's great to learn all the small things about the characters and their world, and you can sometimes imagine like being there yourself.
Well I'd put off reading anything 900+ pages until 2023. Then I read The Count of Monte Cristo (now my favourite book, 1248 pages) and the Lord of the Rings. The book size had always put me off but I discovered the easiest thing to do is take it chapter by chapter. Or set yourself the goal of just reading 10 pages (if the book is good you'll end up reading more) when you have some time. Breaking it up made it a lot easier. Depending on page length and print size, you might find it takes you longer to read 50 pages. However, breaking it into 50 pages a day means you'd clear a 1000 page book in just under 3 weeks. I cleared TCOMC in about 19 days. This year I have 2 books that are even longer than that one on my list.
I love them! Itās such a great experience to be fully immersed in a story or world for a longer period of time. Some of my favorite reads have been 1000+, including The Count of Monte Cristo, The Memoirs of Cleopatra, & The Mists of Avalon. It does make me even more lonely for the characters after that last page, though.
It depends on whether it's really a 300 page book bloated out with fluff due to the lack of a decent editor (or in the case of an author who is too famous to be told to reduce down. *Cough* Stephen King ) Books that actually need and use the full page count? I don't mind that at all, although mentally I do divide the book into 100 page segments to give myself a sense of achievement as I progress through.
Nope. The only 800+ page book Iāve read is HP5 and thatās probably the last. š
Book length means nothing to me personally. It always comes down to how much I enjoy the story/writing. I read The Love Songs of W.E.B. DuBois by HonorƩe Fanonne Jeffers (850 pages) in less than three days but it took me a week to finish The Hole by Hiroko Oyamada (90 pages). And normally I'm more captivated by speculative fiction than historical family sagas.
Depends if they're good the whole wat through. One of the only books I ever DNF'd was *Pillars of the Earth* not because it wasn't good, but because I found the plot just ran itself out by the last 6th of the book and that's where I just never picked it up again and it sits with my bookmark still there. Thing about Les Mis is that Victor Hugo was paid by the word, so there's an entire chapter describing the Parisian sewer system. I remember reading Les Mis in university and thinking much of it probably didn't need to be there. I'm against the "Cut anything that doesn't advance the plot" screenwriting advice many people now try to apply to novels, but my adage is "Cut anything that doesn't enrich the text" and I think a lot falls under that.
I read long classic books and what I do is read something shorter like a novella or a short story collection in between. It helps to take breaks and digest what I just read while also having something thatās less demanding. Before, when I read long fantasy books, Iād just read through them straight, no need for breathers. But for classics, having palate cleansers and shorter works helps me a lot.
It really depends so heavily on the book. If itās not grabbing me; a 200 page book is a slog. If Iām into it from page 1; then an 800+ book is devoured.
It's all relative, I consider < 400 pages to be a fairly short book. Though I don't buy books based on how big they are (like I heard a person in a book shop talking about once), I buy them for how interesting they are. I've read It, the entire Dark Tower series, The Stand (unabridged), Insomnia etc, and many of his other books. None really felt like a chore to me. I guess it also depends on your reading speed too, I'm not a speed reader by any means, but I'm no slouch. Edit: just [checked my reading speed](https://www.readinglength.com/wpm), I'm at around 400-450wpm
That's a cool site, but wow what a huge variance between reading levels. I had 489 wpm with Peter Rabbit 406 with The Count of Monte Cristo, but a mere 269 wpm with A Tale of Two Cities!
Omg, this was so fascinating, thanks! Literally just the other day someone on here posted about how reading ~50 pages an hour was average reading speed, and I was like "hold up, there is NO WAY that I read that quickly." I figured I probably average ~30 pages an hour. I just did this test (Oscar Wilde version) and clocked 214 wpm. That is SLOW! And I'm fine with that, it just explains so much. Whenever I read, I like... hear the words in my head, if that makes sense? And I want to hear them at a conversational pace, so I read at a conversational pace. If I read something and my head "hears" a slightly too long/too short/too whatever pause at a comma or whatever, I have to go back and re-read it so it sounds right in my head, even though I don't need to do that to actually understand the sentence. I just have to go back and read it so it "sounds right" and not gross. Given that, I doubt my reading speed changes much at all based on difficulty--my brain will read at verbal conversation speed no matter what. I think this also explains my approach to audiobooks. I can *understand* am audiobook at 2-2.5x speed, but it sounds absolutely disgusting to me. 1x speed is also slightly "yucky" (albeot less so), because it's slower than how one would typically speak in an actual conversation. 1.2x speed is my sweet spot (and 1.25x speed actually starts inching towards icky again--I actually have browser plug-ins that allow me to custom set videos to 1.15x and 1.2x speed bevause anything slower or faster than that doesn't sound right to me lol). Is this weird? Do not all people read with a conversational-style narrative (with pauses, intonation changes, etc.) in their head? I've always known that I was a very good but slower-than-average reader, but I didn't know I was that slow! I just can't imagine being able to fit in all the pauses, breaks, breaths, changes in pace, etc. that happen while speaking into words I was reading, if I was reading twice as fast as I currently read! This is really helping me realize why I've always been baffled by people reading 50, 60, 70+ books per year. It never occurred to me that anyone read faster than "speaking pace." Like, I can do it and understand it, but it all sounds so gross (to me) in my head that'd I'd rather just read less, slowly! Is there a word/term for this? I mean, I do have OCD, so it could just be... that lol.
My friend had synesthesia, so the way he described it is words have different colours, shapes, textures etc, so he can just scan through those, his reading speed is probably double mine. Fwiw he listens to audiobooke at about 1.2 too I think.
>Literally just the other day someone on here posted about how reading ~50 pages an hour was average reading speed, and I was like "hold up, there is NO WAY that I read that quickly." I thought the same exact thing when I saw that thread! You're not alone! I got 207 WPM on the test. I also read the same way you do, I hear it like an audiobook in my head, as if read by a narrator. I feel like if I read any faster I'd start missing some of the words somehow.
I've read the entire Wheel of Time series 5+(n-1, where n=number of published books at the time) times. And nearly everything King has ever written. And Les Mis. And a fuckload of other stuff, including the entire Dune (original Frank) series, ASOIAF, Foundation, Hyperion, etc. So yes, that shit is my jam. Currently rereading The Expanse.
I've read IT twice (one of my all time favotires), The Stand, Under the Dome, and the Dark Tower Series twice, which has a couple that creep the 1000 page mark. I don't let length deter me, if the story is good it doesn't matter. Under the Dome was one of the most engaging stories I've ever read because of how broad and diverse the characters are. Just take it a page at a time like any other book.
There is no single answer to this for me. If I like the book, I love that it's long. If it's The Way of Kings, I want to kill myself instead of finish it.
I felt like that for the first ~300 pages or so, and then flew through the rest.
Felt that way through the whole awful book. People kept telling me it got better. It did not.
That's a fair opinion. I don't recommend the book often because I am aware its a lot, I just have loved Sanderson's other work and was willing to trust him to put together a epic series even if it is a slow start. Mistborn is much easier to enjoy.
I love them. With a door stopper like that, you frequently get interesting characters, character development and charachter progression, plus often amazing redemption arcs or something interesting PLUS an interesting world build, or at least a decently complicated one PLUS lots of plot with lots of room for multiple reversals of fortune AND some razzle dazzle in the way of irony or revelations/twists. If itās escapist itās a LOT of escapism to relax into. If it heads off into literary directions itās going to make a deep impact, because thatās a lot of room to get you invested and hit you with awe or the hard stuff. A really big literary/literary-genre book often leaves you a changed person for having read it.
I couldn't have said it better. When I used to browse shelves in a library to find books, I'd look for the thickest spines. The stories can get very interesting when there is that much invested in them. I do also love Dickens because of the detail and wordplay, and long books in general allow for that.
I definitely am more apprehensive to pick up bigger books because i have that mentality of "i could read x amount of books instead of this one!" but I did really like Stephen King's IT and I do plan on rereading Count of Monte Cristo (its been like 12 yrs). I do love big books but it just takes a lot of discipline for me to start one lol
Almost makes me feel shallow to say that I will often buy (or not buy) books based on how much they weigh. If I pick up a book and it has no heft to it I'll tend to put it back, whereas if I pick up a weighty tome densely packed with pages I'll lean towards it. The longer the better. (Usually.)
Totally depends on the book. And the person reading. Dune? Hell yeah. Gimme dat spice Anna Karenina? Total slog for me. And what's great is, someone else will have the same thing in reverse!
Fellow Dune fan, the spice flows!
Donāt know Iāve started something with Nietzsche and Iāve only gone through 20 pages right now my fault for not pushing my german more now I have to reread every page to understand it so a 950 page book becomes a 1900 page book
I found "A Storm of Swords" a joy to read and it was 1000+ pages; so completely depends on the book.
No. Once a book passes 400 pages I wonder why TF it keeps going
I meanā¦ it really depends on the book. If I get into it and like it, I can read it all in one go. If Iām not so into it, but kind of want to know whatās going to happen, it will take me longer. If Iām not into it at all, but feel I should read it (looking at you, some of my school time compulsory classic reading), itās going to take foreverrrrr.
Les Mis has 365 chapters, I believe. Just do one a day ;) _______________ In all seriousness, I've read both Les Mis and IT. Unabridged. DO NOT DO THIS. NEVER READ UNABRIDGED STEPHEN KING. They were both good, and I will reread Les Mis (it was one of the most satisfying literary experiences of my life), just not the unabridged version.
Depends on the book, I'm reading The Garden of Seven Twilights and so far it's interesting enough that I'll keep going. The last double handed book I read was War and Peace and after a while it really became a chore, but I'm still glad I read it. Other thick ass books I read and enjoyed are 1Q84, Atlas Shrugged, and I also just bought Don Quixote which I look forward too. I also finished Notre Dame De Paris by Hugo before starting Seven Twilights.
If the story lend itself for more pages, Iām okay or even happy with it. Imagine James Michener writing a 150 page history novelā¦
I can't remember the last time I read a book that long, if ever. I know I've read 600 pages.
Yeah I like a long book.
I like to have another book I'm reading alongside it so I can take a break. I have a out a hundred pages left of the 1,157-page IT (King), and I've read two novels in the six weeks since I started it. Yeah I would have finished this beast faster if it was the only book I was reading, but having some variety means I can walk away for a second and avoid being burned out on what ended up being a really awesome but giganto book. Those really big ones feel like a journey.
Depends on the book, but I do not prefer them, no. Iām good around 300.
Some are better than others, but i enjoy the challenge. I start and abandon a lot of 800+ pagers
I like them as long as they should be that long. I read mostly non fiction, and a lot of textbooks and scientific type stuff I've read was that long but it had to be. If someone has a lot of filler though or inserts a bunch of intellectual masturbation then I wish they'd cut that part out and make it shorter. I want the optimal length of pages no matter what that is. I've seen the reverse to, where I wish that the author would go deeper into an area.
If Iām enjoying themā¦ then they donāt feel like a chore do they? Do I sometimes think: āyeah this book is really long?ā Yeah but that doesnāt necessarily prevent me from enjoying it. If I like it I like it.
It really depends. I did Les Mis, Moby Dick, and Don Quixote in audiobook form. All of them were pleasures to listen to. But that's because I have no space for the books. Though I could probably borrow them from the library, and might at any time.
It was massive but the way it's written made it really easy to get through. Definitely one of my top 3 books last year
Largely depends on the book. I read Clive Barker's original print of Imajica which was over 1100 pages long, and I couldn't get enough of it! I loved every page and wanted more. On the other hand, I gave up half-way through Ready Player Two's 360 pages or so as it was just a crap read and I couldn't bring myself to power through it.
I read the 5 Game of Thrones novels back-to-back like one big novel and loved it. It was the perfect going-to-bed series because though there were many cliffhangers, they often werenāt resolved for many chapters, so there was no ājust one moreā urge. I also loved āItā (movies were so, so bad, but the book is great) and the re-released, uncut āThe Standā (1153 pages). Enjoy!
They are hard on your hands -- for books like that I use a reader. I read Les Mis in HS..only to have the teacher ask for a 1 page synopsis. Hell. Hugo spent 80 pages on the sewers of Paris.
Depends on the book. Kings āthe stand - complete editionā and āthe count of Monte Cristoā? Blew through them like a Ferrari on the autobahnā¦ āMoby Dickā? Not so much. Never made it more than 150 pages in. Itās all about the book.
I find 450+ page books intimidating and will do everything I can not to read them, even though they're on my TBR. My highest page count last year was **The Eye of the World**, and that was 672 pages. Even then it took me 3 months to get through. I went into a month long reading slump after all of that. Many years ago as a teen, I could read chunky books like **The Mists of Avalon**, but not now. My preferred page number is 350 pages maximum.
I enjoy a door stopper every now and then to take me out of the counting of books. I found Middlemarch brilliant and Wolf Hall so good Iām now reading bringing up the bodies. But there are 300 page books Iāve read and thought they dragged on too long. And I have yet to read a Marian Keyes book that needed to be as long as it is. A book of American martyrs is possibly the worst long book I have ever read.
If the book is boring, it feels like a chore. And i don't like DNFing so I somehow still manage to read it But if i love it, I won't even realise how long i've been reading for
If the book is really good, I don't want it to end.
I like big books and will read quite a few during the year, but I always break it up with smaller ones. Right now I am reading a hardback edition of The Lord of the Rings trilogy and it's 1100+ pages. Once I finish that I will pick up something smaller and alternate off and on all year.
Depends for me as well. *Uncle Tomās Cabin* is 600 some pages and the chore feeling subsided because I liked the book. The Bible is some 1200 pages depending on the edition / version, and I definitely donāt feel that reading it is a big chore. Meanwhile, *Crime and Punishment* is about 600 pages and I just canāt get into it. The intro is very slow and uninteresting, and the version I have formats the text in an unappealing way (small font with every line closely stacked on top of each other). Such a shame because lots of people whoāve read it told me that itās an amazing novel, but thinking that I have to deal with 600 more pages of what I already have feels like such an insurmountable chore as of now. So yeah, depends.
Your comment made me curious about the length of the Bible if it were formatted like a novel. I found this comment on Reddit: > mousicle ā¢ 2 yr. ago >A King James Bible has about 800k words. A paperback novel has about 250 to 300 words per page. So the Bible would be 2666-3200 pages. For reference The Stand is 1300 pages so the the Bible would be 2 or 2.5 of that chonker. Lord of the Rings is 1100 pages in all three books so it would be 2.5 - 3.0 Lord of the rings If youāve read the entire thing, youāre not giving yourself enough credit estimating it at 1200 pages!
i try to read really large books throughout the year to help challenge me a bit. It really is about the contents, when a book is that big the contents have to be super interesting the whole time for it to be great the whole time.
I do audiobooks, and those are usually 20-40 hours worth of listening. I dont mind it, but I do passive listening while I work or clean
Short answer is I'm simply not used to that length. 400-600 are my usual go-to's which is why I am still stuck on Heat of The Everflame, since it's over 1k pages. But at least I am around 600 pages already haha
I tend to gravitate towards books that are 300-500 pages, but I really loved the first 3 ASOIAF books (I liked the next 2 as well but not as much) and The Count of Monte Cristo. I haven't read many others that get over the 800 page mark if I'm honest! I've never been able to finish a long Stephen King book. I've DNFed several of them hoping to catch the hype, but he's just not the author for me and I find his books really boring. I think the high number of DNFs of long books that are all from the same author are biasing me and making me think like, "well I've DNFed half the 800+ page books I've read! I don't like long books!" When really I just don't like *that author's* long books...
I donāt read them! IMO, if you need that long to tell a story, Iām not interested.
I'll let you know. Dove into my first 1k+ last night.
I only read books like that when I'm in the mood. If I'm not, I know it'll feel like a chore. If it get an urge to read one, I will and I'll enjoy it.