Saturday Book Discussion: The Longest Book You've Ever Read
I posted this topic a long time ago, before I was doing regular Saturday Book Discussions. But nothing wrong with lazily recycling old posts revisiting an old topic, right?
So, what is the longest book you've ever read?
If you've read Marienbad My Love, you win. You're also insane.
If you've read the entire Oxford English Dictionary, you are either this guy or you are insane.
If you've read The Story of the Vivian Girls, in What is Known as the Realms of the Unreal, of the Glandeco-Angelinian War Storm Caused by the Child Slave Rebellion, then it probably drove you insane as surely as would the Necronomicon.
Limiting ourselves to more traditionally published books, you can check out Wikipedia's List of longest novels.
Page counts for books can vary significantly between editions, and an 800-page children's book (e.g. Harry Potter) isn't the same as an 800-page adult book, so any "longest books" list is likely to be an approximation. For our purposes, I define "book" to be a single novel (though the line between "novel" and "volume N of a multi-volume epic" can also be ambiguous), so no counting the entire Wheel of Time series (or any other series) as a single book. For example, I am reading Anthony Powell's A Dance to the Music of Time series right now; it's counted as a single "book" in the List of 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die (curse you, books1001!), and it is a single epic work, but it's not really a single 3000-page book, it's a twelve-volume series that was published over a period of twenty years. So, I am not counting it.
You also can't count books you've read parts of or use as a reference, even if you think you've looked on every page at some point in your life (e.g., bibles, dictionaries, textbooks).
As of April, 2012, here are my ten longest books:
Cryptonomicon, by Neal Stephenson1168 pages
The Stand, by Stephen King1168 pages
It, by Stephen King1090 pages
Reamde, by Neal Stephenson1044 pages
Bleak House, by Charles Dickens1037 pages
Gone with the Wind, by Margaret Mitchell1011 pages
The Way of Kings, by Brandon Sanderson1007 pages
The Wise Man's Fear, by Patrick Rothfuss994 pages
The Bachman Books, by Stephen King*923 pages
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, by J.K. Rowling896 pages
* Arguably The Bachman Books breaks my "no series" rule, but I'm counting it since I did read the collection as a single volume.
Obviously, there is a preponderance of epic fantasy doorstoppers on my long reads list, though I'm reading more big classics lately. But I have yet to tackle War and Peace.
Poll Longest book
Note about Saturday Book Discussions
I do take requests! I can always come up with something to blather about, but if you have an idea you'd like to see me write up as a SBD, let me know. For that matter, I only "own" SBD inasmuch as I'm the one who started it and I'm the one who posts them, but if you would like to write an SBD "guest post," let me know.
Previous Saturday Book Discussions.