Stephen King's "It" was the first really big book I ever read, I think when I was 11. I remember being so proud to have read something more than 1,000 pages! I have read it twice more in the three decades since then, and enjoyed it more each time, the last time being just a few years ago. What he does so marvelously in the novel that every film adaptation fails to do is juxtapose the childhood trauma with the adult insecurity, showing the connections between how our childhood fears literally shape our whole worlds. And I will defend the "weird scene towards the end," at least in the artistic symbolism of it (the power of childhood friendships requires connection, as soon as they start to drift apart they will lose their way, lost in the sewers for ever, so they embark on a radical exercise of coming together in order to free themselves, but have to sacrifice their childhood innocence in order to win that freedom). My own other overlaps with your list are "The Dark Tower," "A Feast for Crows," "1Q84," and "The Stand." So we share fully half of your list! And all good books that I would happily read again. I have been thinking about my opinion on long books since your last video, and ultimately I no longer have any interest in boasting of how manuy books I read or their page count. If a book can keep me entertained for its duration, it is the right duration. If I spend a week really enjoying 1 long book or really enjoying 3 short books it doesn't change my enjoyment, and that is what matters. Now, it is probably fair to say that many if not most long books don't really need to be as long as they are, so that does throw a spanner in the gears, a bit. But there is some type of settling in that can happen in long books that is harder to experience in shorter books, so I am usually willing to take the gamble...
This is a great list. A few long books that I've read and enjoyed are Lonesome Dove, The Stand, Dark Tower, Gone With The Wind, Pillars of the Earth, It, Swan Song, Fall of Giants by Ken Follett, Under The Dome (not a favorite) and 11/22/63. Looking forward to more videos in your Longest Books series.
The Ken Follett books that are his historical fiction series are chunky but so engaging that they are quick reads. @lavernehodge3320 My list is so similar to your’s. I am a little more than halfway through with Lonesome Dove currently and loving it. It is also a quick read. I would love to read Dark Tower and have Gone With the Wind on my stack.
I have been retired sind 2018 and have been reading a lot of books. I have read all of the Tom Clancy books you mentioned, all of the Steven King books you read, I also read Under the Dome, The Stand (uncut version twice) , Dumas Keys ( really liked this one) and few others. I am also going through the Russian authors, Boris Pasternak's Dr. Zhivago, I have War and Peace, Brother's Karamazov on my list to read. Others I plan to read is The Count of Monte Cristo, The Iliad, and reread The Odyssey. At the moment I have been reading Karl Ove Knausgard's The Morning Star and just now finishing The Wolves of Eternity which I liked much better. I may read his My Struggle Series down the road. Plan to reread Lord of the Rings. I reread The Hobbit which I read in high school and my recollection of that book before rereading it was really far from the real plot which is funny. I am 3/4 through The Dying Grass by Vollmann, really love this book, but it is a lot of work.
I can understand why iit would be hard to read a book with that kind of stuff. Deffently don't read 'A Child Called It', especially since it's a true story of what the author went through. I read the book back in Jr high, and it was hard to get through. It was and still is a fantastic read, cause it really opens one's eyes to the world. Honestly I think it should be a must read for both young adults and adults because it opens your eyes. As someone who at the time had went through abuse and bullying before and during the time of reading it, it made it harder to read. But it also made me thankful that my abuse and bullying wasn't anywhere near as bad as what the author went through.
Have just gotten into Stephen King, started with Carrie, then Salems Lot, and currently reading The Shining. I got a copy of The Stand yesterday from the charity bookshelf at my local Tescos for £2 😀 1415 pages ! Have never read a book this long but really looking forward to it
If you're looking for a short Murakami book, may I recommend Sputnik Sweetheart at 210 pages (paperback). It's engaging throughout and has my all-time favorite opening paragraph.
When I heard King was going to republish the longer version of The Stand I immediately went out and got a copy of the original version, and I'm glad I did. It's the only King book I truly liked. There's a few others I liked, but only in the sense of thinking they were okay. The longest book of his I read was Needful Things and I didn't think it was a very good book. I'm usually not into long books, but there have been times when I've been tempted to dive into some epic, like a James Michener book or Lonesome Dove, but then i shy away.
Not really a big deal, but I would use word count, not page count to determine length. Different fonts, margins, paper sizes, etc. means you can have very different page counts for the same number of words. Page count is too inconsistent to be used comparatively.
I think Les Miserables is the longest book I’ve read (at 1304 pages), and I loved it. Norman Mailer’s Executioner’s Song (at 1136 pages) is the second longest. It was also excellent. Dickens’ Bleak House (at 1036 pages) is one of my three favorite Dickens novels. And finally, Stephen King’s The Stand (at 1153 pages) is on my list for Big Books of Summer for this summer. 😊📚
I've only read the original version of The Stand and loved it so have always avoided reading the unabridged version in case Kings tendency to gild the lily ruins it. Wonder what general consensus is re which version is better
I have never read the short version but I do remember spending the summer reading the uncut version as a teenager one summer and loving it for the most part. The book has a prologue that the original cut didn't (I only know this because I somehow have a vary beaten up copy of the shorter version) and it has one more chapter at the end. As I understand it the story is the same and the characters act the same its just that the uncut has more detail in it. But like I said I loved it when I read.
Love this video concept idea and I realliy look forward to watching other videos in this "long book" series. The longest books I've read that I can remember right now are ... IQ84 The Count of Monte Cristo Anna Karinina Gone with the Wind Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrel The Pillars of the Earth Stephen King's It The Mists of Avalon Middlemarch I'm currently reading "The Kindly Ones". I put it down last month so I could knock some others off my list, but I'm really enjoying that one right now. Those are the ones I can think of off the top of my head. According to my internal clock, the longest book I ever read was David Copperfield. Like I've commented before, I think I really enjoy longer books. I have a penchant for slower paced books, I like the immersive experience they provide.
I read The Stand during the fall of 2020 and very much enjoyed it. I think I read in in 4 days. It meanders quite a bit (as does most King) but it still drew me in.
The longest books I've read so far have been "Jean-Christophe", "War and Peace", "The Source," "It", and "The Stand". I'm about to finish the final section of "In Search of Lost Time," which would total over 4000 pages by the end! I'm also halfway through "Varney the Vampire," an old penny dreadful that clocks in at 2,400 pages. I also plan on reading "Anthony Adverse" and "Black Lamb and Grey Falcon" soon. Long books are not so challenging when they are well done, because the time just flies by.
The Lord of the Rings trilogy. I'm not sure how long each of the books are but it seemed to go on forever. It is still one of my favorites. I also loved The Stand and It and a surprise is I just read Lonesome Dove I have never read a Western before but it was great thanks to your recommendation.
I read Juliette by the Marquis DeSade... 1200 pages of smut. I'm still not sure why I did it. Read It and The Stand. Read Swan Song by Robert R. McCammon, which was pretty thick, around 900 pages. Lonesome Dove was also very long (although it was so great it didn't feel like it). Moby Dick was also pretty long. The first "grown up" book I ever read was Audrey Rose by Frank DeFelitta. It's not really THAT long, a little less than 500 pages, but I was super-impressed with myself for reading that when I was 9 years old. I used to just look at the thickness of the book and kinda gloat... :)
Longest I’ve read are the stand, dostoevsky’s devils, the gulag archipelago, plus I’ve got about 300 pages left to read of atlas shrugged. I’m trying to work up the courage to tackle the complete varney the vampyre. 1,200 pages of tiny print
Oooh, my mum had those Tom Clancy books in hardback and both of them are still on the bookshelves in front of me... I suppose I was dimly aware that they were big books but not just *how* big. I just pulled Bear and Dragon off the shelf and, sure enough, 1028 numbered pages of fairly small print in that edition. Mum had a bunch of Bryce Courtenay books, too, they're still on the shelves too, and some of them must be of similar page counts cos they look about as thick.
1Q84 was my first Murakami as well and I loved it- I can understand why people might not like it but I was captivated by the story. I've read a few more Murakami since then and Kafka on the Shore is one that comes closest to my enjoyment of 1Q84 (maybe even beats it). The Stand is one of my all time favorite books, although King does have the tendency to go on those side tangents... sometimes for hundreds of pages. I haven't read it since high school so maybe a reread is in order! I have not read any Tom Clancy but recently came into possession of a few, maybe I'll start small and build up to the longer stories!
I knew Stephen King would be on here. The largest book I've read recently was probably Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell. I definitely gravitate toward shorter to mid-range reads.
We are the same age. I read the original version of The Stand in High School, and then I read the unabridged version in 1992 when I was in University. I preferred the extended version, and it was one of my favourite books at the time. I am currently doing a project of reading all of King’s books that I haven’t read for more than 20 years, or at all, in chronological order, and I got to The Stand in May. It was interesting reading it again at this age, and after a pandemic. I still enjoyed it, and I identified with Glen a lot more this time, but the ending annoyed me more than the first time around. Not in my top 10 anymore.
A great and wide-ranging list of the longest books you ever read, with of course some repeating authors. Thanks for sharing them; I am curious about a few I haven't read. My Top Ten (unless something heavy has slipped my mind!) goes like this: The Big Book of Espionage, edited by Otto Penzler (832 pages) The Big Book of Jack the Ripper, edited by Otto Penzler (848 pages; a favourite collection of mine, in part because of the nonfiction content) Middlemarch, by George Eliot (852 pages) The Mysteries of Paris, by Eugene Sue (855 pages) The Lord of the Rings, by J. R. R. Tolkien (1147 pages) The Gormenghast Novels, by Mervyn Peake (I read this as one volume, so I'm just gonna count it; if you split the books up, obviously it does not make the list...but I carried around one big 1173 page book for weeks, so my wrist insists it be acknowledged) The Wandering Jew, by Eugene Sue (1376 pages; my favourite long book, thus far) The Count of Monte Cristo, by Alexandre Dumas (1462 pages) A Suitable Boy, by Vikram Seth (1474 pages) The Journey to the West, by Wu Cheng'en, as translated by Anthony C. Wu (1935 pages; okay, this is kind of the reverse of my Gormenghast situation - I read this in four separate volumes, but it really is one literary work. I would also say it is my second favourite long read) I only read The Stand in its original form, before the expanded version came out, otherwise it would likely be on the list. I don't feel compelled to read it for new scenes, but maybe one day... Whenever I have a really long book on my shelves, waiting to be read, I tend to procrastinate about starting it. It's about talking myself into committing to one book for at least a week, if not two weeks, as opposed to being able to go to something new and different in a mere couple of days. The Wandering Jew did sort of change my attitude - I regretted that I had let it sit so long, and of course when The Mysteries of Paris suddenly came back into print years later, I had such faith in Eugene Sue that I went right to it. Gormenghast was also no chore - I loved it - and A Suitable Boy was surprisingly addictive, albeit with the most political Section of the story dragging a bit for me. The Lord of the Rings was a slight slog for me at the start, until they left the Shire, and then it took off for me. I loved George Eliot's novel Daniel Deronda more than her longer work Middlemarch. The Count of Monte Cristo was a wonderful experience, when I finally got into "well, you have to read this, so do it now!" mode; I was partly encouraged, because I figured it was going to be somewhat like the Eugene Sue behemoths, and it was.
Another set of long books people seem to like are Clavell's Shogun. Believe all but one are over 1000 pages, with that one almost 500 (don't know what happened there). If you're interested, a video I'd like to see is a list of overall longest novels, say the 20-30 longest. I've had trouble finding an accurate list, at least one that wasn't full of series books. I've heard, though it's been awhile and might have changed, that Proust's epic was the longest, though I still don't think the whole thing has been translated to English yet.
I have Les Miserables on my TBR list AND in my house. My version is the Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition, translation by Christine Donougher (so a newer translation). It weighs in at 1303 pages plus a 105 pages of notes. It's part of my plan to read "difficult" books, so I'm glad to hear you loved it! Gives me hope...
Interesting idea. Looking at my Goodreads list sorted by page length, apparently I mostly dislike long books. 1. War and Peace - 1,392 pages - 3 stars ⭐️⭐️⭐️ 2. The Way of Kings - 1,283 pgs - 3 stars ⭐️⭐️⭐️ 3. The Essential Ellison - 1,249 - 4 stars (mostly short stories, so I’m not sure it counts) ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ 4. The Lord of the Rings - 1,216 - 3 stars (also not sure if it counts, but I did read them all at once in 1979) ⭐️⭐️⭐️ 5. A Storm of Swords - 1,177 - 3 stars ⭐️⭐️⭐️ 6. Atlas Shrugged - 1,168 - 1 star ⭐️ 7. The Stand uncut - 1,152 - 1 star (the edited version was better) ⭐️ 8. Shogun - 1,152 - 2 stars (read in 1980) ⭐️⭐️ 9. It - 1.090 - 1 star (hated this book; made me stop reading King for 35 years) ⭐️ 10. A Feast for Crows - 1,060 - 1 star ⭐️ Two more in case #3 and #4 are disqualified: 11. Gone with the Wind - 1,037 - 1 star ⭐️ 12. A Clash of Kings - 1,009 - 4 stars ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ (one of the best fantasy novels I’ve read, when GRRM had an editor who told him “no”)
I love 1Q84! I don't see why some people dislike it so much. Some alternate world books can be confusing, but this was easy to follow, and so interesting. I also breezed through it, wondering what strange thing would happen next!
A lot of people have said that. It took me a while to finish as it was quite long. I went back to it over several weeks to see if they returned to their world. Probably won't read it again, lol!
I read Clancy's Red Storm Rising last year and liked it, so I thought this year I'd read all of Clancy's original Jack Ryan series, so I bought a big stack of the hardcovers. The Hunt for Red October was definitely worth it, and Patriot Games was good, too, but I was irritated by bad dialogue and Clancy's tendency to repeat himself unnecessarily. It definitely felt like a slog towards the middle and end. I still want to know how Ryan gets to the presidency, but I don't think it'll be this year. Maybe not for several years. The longest novels I've read were probably the unabridged version of The Count of Monte Cristo, The Stand, Infinite Jest, and Atlas Shrugged. I don't read many long novels these days. The longest nonfiction book I've ever read was Martin Gilbert's seventh volume of his Winston Churchill biography, 1400+ pages of tiny words and footnotes.
The longest book I've read, not including multi-volume works such as Lord of the Rings, is Don Quixote, clocking in at over 1,000 pages in the Penguin Classics edition. I found it worthwhile but a struggle at times. There are two parts and Part 2 was published as a sequel to Part 1 but it is generally considered as a single work. If I ever get around to reading War and Peace it will take the prize.
I’ve read all of the Tom Clancy books. I really enjoyed them. However, he was not good at writing dialogue. I have read all of the Game of Thrones books and loved them. I do think that the books could have been shorter. Two great long books I read recently that I really loved were “War and Peace” and “The Count of Monte Christo.” I know that many people are intimidated by the Russian names and length of “War and Peace” but it is a magnificent book.
One of the longest books I've read - not in pages but in how long it felt - was "White Noise" by Delillo. Ugh - that book felt like it was at least 10 times longer than it actually is. I learned from reading that that I really don't enjoy post modern deconstructions of suburban life at all. A recent actually long book I read that took me only a week was "The Stand" by King... Enjoyed that one a lot more.
1. Debt of Honor (990) 2. Old Sins (994) 3. The Dark Tower (1,050) 4. Battlefield Earth 🌍 (1,050) 5. It (1,090) 6. A feast for crows 🐦⬛ (1,106) 7. The bear and the dragon 🐉 (1,137) 8. The executive order (1,273) 9. 1Q84 (1,318) 10. The stand (1,325)
Not sure what the longest book I've read is, but I suspect it's Ten Years After, by Dumas. My copy is split into three chunky volumes, though there are a lot of foot and end notes.
I think as you get towards old age so the books you read must necessarily get shorter and shorter.. I remember an interview with a humorous old chap who claimed he didn’t buy green bananas any more..
I liked The Stand just not the ending. The same applies for It. I've read many long books and have since given up due to age. That being said, I'm currently reading Don Quixote by Cervantes 😂 Really looking forward to your next top tens. Cheers
Clancy really did do his best to outdo himself on book length as his career went on. I don't think it entirely worked all the time. A few of them could have done with some editing, I think. As for the new stuff written after his death, some of it is fairly good. There's some good talent behind them.
Oh, boy. My partial (memory fails) list of longest books: Don Quijote; The Count of Montecristo; Les Miserables; Bleak House; Cecilia; The Stand; The Reality Dysfunction Trilogy (each book is over 1,200 pages); Hell's Foundations Quiver (part of the Safehold saga of sci-fi by David Weber; all the books are doorstoppers, but I think this one is the longest). There are more, but i know I've forgotten them now.
My dad read many Tom Clancy books...I like John Grisham.....I read The Firm, and The Rainmaker....I have read many Stephen King's books The Shining, and The Talisman..which was really good...
I don't know that I would have pegged you as a Tom Clancy guy, probably because of the sheer mass of his books. Also, for the record, I approve of "that scene" in IT. Interesting choice, for sure, but I get it.
As far as I've been able to dig, there were serious opinions about excising that part/scene from the book. Some people were briefly up in arms about it and wanted either King to do a "Rage" job on that part, or the publisher to do it if he refused. The initiative got nowhere, where it belongs, but the lunatics were simply flexing a little back then, a long, long seven years ago.
I'd love to hear why you approve. I personally think it's very icky and serves no purpose. I would be against removing it from the book, but in my mind, I like to pretend that part just didn't happen, cause I love the rest of the book so much.
@@stevegilhool8526 I like that it's suitably shocking. I like that it's a clear demarcation between childhood and adulthood. I like that it uses love and intimacy as a weapon against darkness, particularly for a group of characters who have not experienced a lot of love or intimacy elsewhere in their lives. And I really like that it centers the feminine, via Beverly, as the pathway and conduit toward healing. I've never really thought about all of that specifically before, so thanks for making me articulate it!
12 years old !! You nearly became an L Ron acolyte. I'm not surprised Snoozerson is a fan of the book, that tells you everything. You've got some real narcolepsy epics in this list. I fell asleep at least 5 times while watching this. A new record. 😉 My favourite long books are all non-fiction: The Reckoning (David Halberstam) and Dreadnought (Robert K Massie).
I think 75% of the books on my TBR are huge books (I already read a lot of the shorter ones 🤦♀️). 7 are Tom Clancy books (old hard covers). So much stuff happens in these books, I couldn't tell you what exactly happens either. And I have about a dozen of Stephen King's books waiting for me. 📚📚❤
Here’s my top 10 longest books, according to Goodreads: 1) Les Miserables (1463pgs) 2) War and Peace (1444 read three times) 3) Reapers Gale (1280, and three other Malazan books over 1200 pages, all read 3x) 4) The Count of Monte Cristo (1276) 5) Executive Orders by Clancy (1273) 6) The Way of Kings (1258, and the other Stormlight books all over 1000, 3x) 7) The Witching Hour by Anne Rice (1207) 8) A Storm of Swords (1177, 2x) 9) Capital Vol. 1 by Karl Marx (1152) 10) Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson (1152) If In Search of Lost Time by Proust is a single novel, it easily tops the list at 4215 pages. Also, Goodreads says I’ve read 45 books that are over 1000 pages. Guess I like long books.
The Stand was the book I used to try out Audible.... I listened to it during the Pandemic which was a bit surreal... I didn't continue with Audible....audiobooks are not for me...
I haven't read that particular one yet. But I found a reddit thread "Have never read Stephen King. Is Insomnia a okay place to start?" Opinions seem to be mixed.
Interesting that I read several long books last year: 'It' for the first time, 'The Stand' for the 3rd time. I also read the first 5 Game of Thrones books (are there more?) and I also read 'Les Miserables', which was terribly boring but I was determined to finish it. I am not really a King fan, or a fantasy fan, so I am not quite sure what got into me.
Hands down Steven King books!! Couple others, the way of King series were the longest and R A Salvatore the dark Elf series. All good but long, Steven King can be wordy at times.😊
I'm a bit embarrassed to say out of all those, I've only started reading 1Q84 and paused it to start other series. The biggest standalone book of mine is probably Neal Stephenson's Seveneves at around 900 pages. Not sure if it can be called a book in the traditional sense because it started as a web series, but Worm by John C. McCrae is quite long at 1.68 million words and it's really good. Otherwise, read quite a few series with more than 20 books in them...
The Stand is also my longest book, unless you are into Russian Lit or High Fantasy I would bet its everybody's longest book!! :D Excluding Steven King, The Hour I First Believed (Wally Lamb) in the low 700's and The Fountainhead (Rand) are up there on my list too.
I've read a book that is 2097 pages long. But I like to be fair and say that it's 2087 pages long when you deduct blank and title pages. I made a short of that book a while ago.
I'm also waiting for Ice and Fire. Martin is a wonderful writer. Have you read Fevre Dream? Fantastic vampire novel. My favorite long book is probably IT. The Witching Hour by Anne Rice is fantastic, too.
I want to read Battlefield Earth and Hubbard's Mission Earth decology, just to compare the two. It seems to me, and I can't find anyone who's read both to change my mind, that B E is a summary/ short version of the other. I know they're different but it wouldn't surprise me if M E is just a long drawn out version of B E.
I don't know any average English speaker who uses the word "voluminous" in casual conversation. They're long books or epic books, or maybe, if it's a particularly snooty book, tome.
@@Fantumh This is not a casual conversation, it’s a video on UA-cam about literature, so I think it sends a message of not really understanding English , failing to use the correct terminology.
@@sigrid129 This is an informal youtube video. Same thing. "Voluminous book" is certainly correct, but so is calling it a long book or an epic book. Seriously, watch some videos by Oxford educated booktubers and you'll hear them describe long books as---wait for it---long books.
Stephen King's "It" was the first really big book I ever read, I think when I was 11. I remember being so proud to have read something more than 1,000 pages! I have read it twice more in the three decades since then, and enjoyed it more each time, the last time being just a few years ago. What he does so marvelously in the novel that every film adaptation fails to do is juxtapose the childhood trauma with the adult insecurity, showing the connections between how our childhood fears literally shape our whole worlds. And I will defend the "weird scene towards the end," at least in the artistic symbolism of it (the power of childhood friendships requires connection, as soon as they start to drift apart they will lose their way, lost in the sewers for ever, so they embark on a radical exercise of coming together in order to free themselves, but have to sacrifice their childhood innocence in order to win that freedom).
My own other overlaps with your list are "The Dark Tower," "A Feast for Crows," "1Q84," and "The Stand." So we share fully half of your list! And all good books that I would happily read again.
I have been thinking about my opinion on long books since your last video, and ultimately I no longer have any interest in boasting of how manuy books I read or their page count. If a book can keep me entertained for its duration, it is the right duration. If I spend a week really enjoying 1 long book or really enjoying 3 short books it doesn't change my enjoyment, and that is what matters. Now, it is probably fair to say that many if not most long books don't really need to be as long as they are, so that does throw a spanner in the gears, a bit. But there is some type of settling in that can happen in long books that is harder to experience in shorter books, so I am usually willing to take the gamble...
Just finished the Count of Monte Cristo. I was with it for about seven weeks. A different but a great experience. Happy reading everyone.
I really loved the book. I couldn’t put it down, so I read it pretty fast.
This is a great list. A few long books that I've read and enjoyed are Lonesome Dove, The Stand, Dark Tower, Gone With The Wind, Pillars of the Earth, It, Swan Song, Fall of Giants by Ken Follett, Under The Dome (not a favorite) and 11/22/63. Looking forward to more videos in your Longest Books series.
I have been gathering the Ken Follett series from thrift shops, determined to start them when I have a full set.
@@jennamakesbugs They can be kind of chunky, but I enjoyed them.
The Ken Follett books that are his historical fiction series are chunky but so engaging that they are quick reads. @lavernehodge3320 My list is so similar to your’s. I am a little more than halfway through with Lonesome Dove currently and loving it. It is also a quick read. I would love to read Dark Tower and have Gone With the Wind on my stack.
@@hollyc4624 So glad you're enjoying Lonesome Dove. One of my all time favorites. I never let the size of a book scare me.
I have been retired sind 2018 and have been reading a lot of books. I have read all of the Tom Clancy books you mentioned, all of the Steven King books you read, I also read Under the Dome, The Stand (uncut version twice) , Dumas Keys ( really liked this one) and few others. I am also going through the Russian authors, Boris Pasternak's Dr. Zhivago, I have War and Peace, Brother's Karamazov on my list to read. Others I plan to read is The Count of Monte Cristo, The Iliad, and reread The Odyssey. At the moment I have been reading Karl Ove Knausgard's The Morning Star and just now finishing The Wolves of Eternity which I liked much better. I may read his My Struggle Series down the road. Plan to reread Lord of the Rings. I reread The Hobbit which I read in high school and my recollection of that book before rereading it was really far from the real plot which is funny. I am 3/4 through The Dying Grass by Vollmann, really love this book, but it is a lot of work.
It is a book I never finishes because of all the ruthless kid bullying. He writes kids so well that the bullying is horrifying.
I can understand why iit would be hard to read a book with that kind of stuff. Deffently don't read 'A Child Called It', especially since it's a true story of what the author went through. I read the book back in Jr high, and it was hard to get through. It was and still is a fantastic read, cause it really opens one's eyes to the world. Honestly I think it should be a must read for both young adults and adults because it opens your eyes.
As someone who at the time had went through abuse and bullying before and during the time of reading it, it made it harder to read. But it also made me thankful that my abuse and bullying wasn't anywhere near as bad as what the author went through.
Have just gotten into Stephen King, started with Carrie, then Salems Lot, and currently reading The Shining. I got a copy of The Stand yesterday from the charity bookshelf at my local Tescos for £2 😀 1415 pages ! Have never read a book this long but really looking forward to it
That’s a bargain! Hope you enjoy it
If you're looking for a short Murakami book, may I recommend Sputnik Sweetheart at 210 pages (paperback). It's engaging throughout and has my all-time favorite opening paragraph.
When I heard King was going to republish the longer version of The Stand I immediately went out and got a copy of the original version, and I'm glad I did. It's the only King book I truly liked. There's a few others I liked, but only in the sense of thinking they were okay. The longest book of his I read was Needful Things and I didn't think it was a very good book. I'm usually not into long books, but there have been times when I've been tempted to dive into some epic, like a James Michener book or Lonesome Dove, but then i shy away.
I have a copy of unabridged the stand on the way. Read it many years ago snd look forward to revisiting
Not really a big deal, but I would use word count, not page count to determine length. Different fonts, margins, paper sizes, etc. means you can have very different page counts for the same number of words. Page count is too inconsistent to be used comparatively.
I think Les Miserables is the longest book I’ve read (at 1304 pages), and I loved it. Norman Mailer’s Executioner’s Song (at 1136 pages) is the second longest. It was also excellent. Dickens’ Bleak House (at 1036 pages) is one of my three favorite Dickens novels. And finally, Stephen King’s The Stand (at 1153 pages) is on my list for Big Books of Summer for this summer. 😊📚
I've only read the original version of The Stand and loved it so have always avoided reading the unabridged version in case Kings tendency to gild the lily ruins it. Wonder what general consensus is re which version is better
I have never read the short version but I do remember spending the summer reading the uncut version as a teenager one summer and loving it for the most part. The book has a prologue that the original cut didn't (I only know this because I somehow have a vary beaten up copy of the shorter version) and it has one more chapter at the end. As I understand it the story is the same and the characters act the same its just that the uncut has more detail in it.
But like I said I loved it when I read.
Learned a new phrase! King does indeed 'gild the lily' quite often.
Hi, Olly, I'm a huge Clive Barker fan. Ever read anything by him? He's great.
Love this video concept idea and I realliy look forward to watching other videos in this "long book" series. The longest books I've read that I can remember right now are ...
IQ84
The Count of Monte Cristo
Anna Karinina
Gone with the Wind
Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrel
The Pillars of the Earth
Stephen King's It
The Mists of Avalon
Middlemarch
I'm currently reading "The Kindly Ones". I put it down last month so I could knock some others off my list, but I'm really enjoying that one right now. Those are the ones I can think of off the top of my head. According to my internal clock, the longest book I ever read was David Copperfield. Like I've commented before, I think I really enjoy longer books. I have a penchant for slower paced books, I like the immersive experience they provide.
I read The Stand during the fall of 2020 and very much enjoyed it. I think I read in in 4 days. It meanders quite a bit (as does most King) but it still drew me in.
The longest books I've read so far have been "Jean-Christophe", "War and Peace", "The Source," "It", and "The Stand". I'm about to finish the final section of "In Search of Lost Time," which would total over 4000 pages by the end! I'm also halfway through "Varney the Vampire," an old penny dreadful that clocks in at 2,400 pages. I also plan on reading "Anthony Adverse" and "Black Lamb and Grey Falcon" soon. Long books are not so challenging when they are well done, because the time just flies by.
I’m very tempted by Varney, I have to say
The Lord of the Rings trilogy. I'm not sure how long each of the books are but it seemed to go on forever. It is still one of my favorites. I also loved The Stand and It and a surprise is I just read Lonesome Dove I have never read a Western before but it was great thanks to your recommendation.
Kafka on the Shore is my favourite Murakami novel, I recommend it ❤
My favorites by Murakami are 1Q84, Kafka on the Shore, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, and Killing Commendatore.
I read Juliette by the Marquis DeSade... 1200 pages of smut. I'm still not sure why I did it. Read It and The Stand. Read Swan Song by Robert R. McCammon, which was pretty thick, around 900 pages. Lonesome Dove was also very long (although it was so great it didn't feel like it). Moby Dick was also pretty long.
The first "grown up" book I ever read was Audrey Rose by Frank DeFelitta. It's not really THAT long, a little less than 500 pages, but I was super-impressed with myself for reading that when I was 9 years old. I used to just look at the thickness of the book and kinda gloat... :)
Ah, Count of Monte Cristo... I forgot about that one.
Longest I’ve read are the stand, dostoevsky’s devils, the gulag archipelago, plus I’ve got about 300 pages left to read of atlas shrugged. I’m trying to work up the courage to tackle the complete varney the vampyre. 1,200 pages of tiny print
Oooh, my mum had those Tom Clancy books in hardback and both of them are still on the bookshelves in front of me... I suppose I was dimly aware that they were big books but not just *how* big. I just pulled Bear and Dragon off the shelf and, sure enough, 1028 numbered pages of fairly small print in that edition. Mum had a bunch of Bryce Courtenay books, too, they're still on the shelves too, and some of them must be of similar page counts cos they look about as thick.
1Q84 was my first Murakami as well and I loved it- I can understand why people might not like it but I was captivated by the story. I've read a few more Murakami since then and Kafka on the Shore is one that comes closest to my enjoyment of 1Q84 (maybe even beats it). The Stand is one of my all time favorite books, although King does have the tendency to go on those side tangents... sometimes for hundreds of pages. I haven't read it since high school so maybe a reread is in order! I have not read any Tom Clancy but recently came into possession of a few, maybe I'll start small and build up to the longer stories!
I knew Stephen King would be on here. The largest book I've read recently was probably Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell. I definitely gravitate toward shorter to mid-range reads.
I just read that this year. I loved it.
We are the same age. I read the original version of The Stand in High School, and then I read the unabridged version in 1992 when I was in University. I preferred the extended version, and it was one of my favourite books at the time. I am currently doing a project of reading all of King’s books that I haven’t read for more than 20 years, or at all, in chronological order, and I got to The Stand in May. It was interesting reading it again at this age, and after a pandemic. I still enjoyed it, and I identified with Glen a lot more this time, but the ending annoyed me more than the first time around. Not in my top 10 anymore.
Love 1Q84 AND The Stand!
A great and wide-ranging list of the longest books you ever read, with of course some repeating authors. Thanks for sharing them; I am curious about a few I haven't read.
My Top Ten (unless something heavy has slipped my mind!) goes like this:
The Big Book of Espionage, edited by Otto Penzler (832 pages)
The Big Book of Jack the Ripper, edited by Otto Penzler (848 pages; a favourite collection of mine, in part because of the nonfiction content)
Middlemarch, by George Eliot (852 pages)
The Mysteries of Paris, by Eugene Sue (855 pages)
The Lord of the Rings, by J. R. R. Tolkien (1147 pages)
The Gormenghast Novels, by Mervyn Peake (I read this as one volume, so I'm just gonna count it; if you split the books up, obviously it does not make the list...but I carried around one big 1173 page book for weeks, so my wrist insists it be acknowledged)
The Wandering Jew, by Eugene Sue (1376 pages; my favourite long book, thus far)
The Count of Monte Cristo, by Alexandre Dumas (1462 pages)
A Suitable Boy, by Vikram Seth (1474 pages)
The Journey to the West, by Wu Cheng'en, as translated by Anthony C. Wu (1935 pages; okay, this is kind of the reverse of my Gormenghast situation - I read this in four separate volumes, but it really is one literary work. I would also say it is my second favourite long read)
I only read The Stand in its original form, before the expanded version came out, otherwise it would likely be on the list. I don't feel compelled to read it for new scenes, but maybe one day...
Whenever I have a really long book on my shelves, waiting to be read, I tend to procrastinate about starting it. It's about talking myself into committing to one book for at least a week, if not two weeks, as opposed to being able to go to something new and different in a mere couple of days. The Wandering Jew did sort of change my attitude - I regretted that I had let it sit so long, and of course when The Mysteries of Paris suddenly came back into print years later, I had such faith in Eugene Sue that I went right to it. Gormenghast was also no chore - I loved it - and A Suitable Boy was surprisingly addictive, albeit with the most political Section of the story dragging a bit for me. The Lord of the Rings was a slight slog for me at the start, until they left the Shire, and then it took off for me. I loved George Eliot's novel Daniel Deronda more than her longer work Middlemarch. The Count of Monte Cristo was a wonderful experience, when I finally got into "well, you have to read this, so do it now!" mode; I was partly encouraged, because I figured it was going to be somewhat like the Eugene Sue behemoths, and it was.
A Suitable Boy is amazing. Dickens would be jealous!
I love It and The Stand. I would add Under The Dome by Stephen King as well. Swan Song by Robert McCammon.
Another set of long books people seem to like are Clavell's Shogun. Believe all but one are over 1000 pages, with that one almost 500 (don't know what happened there).
If you're interested, a video I'd like to see is a list of overall longest novels, say the 20-30 longest. I've had trouble finding an accurate list, at least one that wasn't full of series books. I've heard, though it's been awhile and might have changed, that Proust's epic was the longest, though I still don't think the whole thing has been translated to English yet.
1Q84 was also my first time reading Murakami and I also loved it. I've read a few more since and 1Q84 is still my favorite.
I’m so curious to learn more about your picks
Les Miserables is the longest book I've ever read (my copy has 1472 pages) and I last read it about 5 years ago and loved it!
I have Les Miserables on my TBR list AND in my house. My version is the Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition, translation by Christine Donougher (so a newer translation). It weighs in at 1303 pages plus a 105 pages of notes. It's part of my plan to read "difficult" books, so I'm glad to hear you loved it! Gives me hope...
Interesting idea. Looking at my Goodreads list sorted by page length, apparently I mostly dislike long books.
1. War and Peace - 1,392 pages - 3 stars ⭐️⭐️⭐️
2. The Way of Kings - 1,283 pgs - 3 stars ⭐️⭐️⭐️
3. The Essential Ellison - 1,249 - 4 stars (mostly short stories, so I’m not sure it counts) ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
4. The Lord of the Rings - 1,216 - 3 stars (also not sure if it counts, but I did read them all at once in 1979) ⭐️⭐️⭐️
5. A Storm of Swords - 1,177 - 3 stars ⭐️⭐️⭐️
6. Atlas Shrugged - 1,168 - 1 star ⭐️
7. The Stand uncut - 1,152 - 1 star (the edited version was better) ⭐️
8. Shogun - 1,152 - 2 stars (read in 1980) ⭐️⭐️
9. It - 1.090 - 1 star (hated this book; made me stop reading King for 35 years) ⭐️
10. A Feast for Crows - 1,060 - 1 star ⭐️
Two more in case #3 and #4 are disqualified:
11. Gone with the Wind - 1,037 - 1 star ⭐️
12. A Clash of Kings - 1,009 - 4 stars ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ (one of the best fantasy novels I’ve read, when GRRM had an editor who told him “no”)
Love long books and looking forward to this series.
I love 1Q84! I don't see why some people dislike it so much. Some alternate world books can be confusing, but this was easy to follow, and so interesting. I also breezed through it, wondering what strange thing would happen next!
To be honest, I found it bloated and overwritten
A lot of people have said that. It took me a while to finish as it was quite long. I went back to it over several weeks to see if they returned to their world. Probably won't read it again, lol!
Proust-In search of Lost Time
3 million words- took me three months to read
I read Clancy's Red Storm Rising last year and liked it, so I thought this year I'd read all of Clancy's original Jack Ryan series, so I bought a big stack of the hardcovers. The Hunt for Red October was definitely worth it, and Patriot Games was good, too, but I was irritated by bad dialogue and Clancy's tendency to repeat himself unnecessarily. It definitely felt like a slog towards the middle and end. I still want to know how Ryan gets to the presidency, but I don't think it'll be this year. Maybe not for several years.
The longest novels I've read were probably the unabridged version of The Count of Monte Cristo, The Stand, Infinite Jest, and Atlas Shrugged. I don't read many long novels these days. The longest nonfiction book I've ever read was Martin Gilbert's seventh volume of his Winston Churchill biography, 1400+ pages of tiny words and footnotes.
The longest book I've read, not including multi-volume works such as Lord of the Rings, is Don Quixote, clocking in at over 1,000 pages in the Penguin Classics edition. I found it worthwhile but a struggle at times. There are two parts and Part 2 was published as a sequel to Part 1 but it is generally considered as a single work. If I ever get around to reading War and Peace it will take the prize.
I was wondering if you'd read The Talisman by Stephen King and Peter Straub, close to 1,000 pages
Probably my favorite King so far.
I’ve read all of the Tom Clancy books. I really enjoyed them. However, he was not good at writing dialogue. I have read all of the Game of Thrones books and loved them. I do think that the books could have been shorter. Two great long books I read recently that I really loved were “War and Peace” and “The Count of Monte Christo.” I know that many people are intimidated by the Russian names and length of “War and Peace” but it is a magnificent book.
I guessed The Stand but I’m sure Storm of Swords is basically the same length 🤔
Good list. Try "Killing Commendatore", "Wind-up Bird Chronicle" or "Kafka on the Shore" by Murakami if you liked 1Q84.
One of the longest books I've read - not in pages but in how long it felt - was "White Noise" by Delillo. Ugh - that book felt like it was at least 10 times longer than it actually is. I learned from reading that that I really don't enjoy post modern deconstructions of suburban life at all.
A recent actually long book I read that took me only a week was "The Stand" by King... Enjoyed that one a lot more.
1. Debt of Honor (990)
2. Old Sins (994)
3. The Dark Tower (1,050)
4. Battlefield Earth 🌍 (1,050)
5. It (1,090)
6. A feast for crows 🐦⬛ (1,106)
7. The bear and the dragon 🐉 (1,137)
8. The executive order (1,273)
9. 1Q84 (1,318)
10. The stand (1,325)
Not sure what the longest book I've read is, but I suspect it's Ten Years After, by Dumas.
My copy is split into three chunky volumes, though there are a lot of foot and end notes.
I think as you get towards old age so the books you read must necessarily get shorter and shorter.. I remember an interview with a humorous old chap who claimed he didn’t buy green bananas any more..
I liked The Stand just not the ending. The same applies for It. I've read many long books and have since given up due to age. That being said, I'm currently reading Don Quixote by Cervantes 😂 Really looking forward to your next top tens. Cheers
Clancy really did do his best to outdo himself on book length as his career went on. I don't think it entirely worked all the time. A few of them could have done with some editing, I think. As for the new stuff written after his death, some of it is fairly good. There's some good talent behind them.
Oh, boy. My partial (memory fails) list of longest books: Don Quijote; The Count of Montecristo; Les Miserables; Bleak House; Cecilia; The Stand; The Reality Dysfunction Trilogy (each book is over 1,200 pages); Hell's Foundations Quiver (part of the Safehold saga of sci-fi by David Weber; all the books are doorstoppers, but I think this one is the longest). There are more, but i know I've forgotten them now.
My dad read many Tom Clancy books...I like John Grisham.....I read The Firm, and The Rainmaker....I have read many Stephen King's books The Shining, and The Talisman..which was really good...
I try to avoid looking at the length for fear of talking myself out of it. Thinking that I can’t do it. I’d say Lonesome Dove is my only big book. 😊
That is a great one!
@@CriminOllyBlog debatable
I don't know that I would have pegged you as a Tom Clancy guy, probably because of the sheer mass of his books. Also, for the record, I approve of "that scene" in IT. Interesting choice, for sure, but I get it.
As far as I've been able to dig, there were serious opinions about excising that part/scene from the book. Some people were briefly up in arms about it and wanted either King to do a "Rage" job on that part, or the publisher to do it if he refused. The initiative got nowhere, where it belongs, but the lunatics were simply flexing a little back then, a long, long seven years ago.
I'd love to hear why you approve. I personally think it's very icky and serves no purpose. I would be against removing it from the book, but in my mind, I like to pretend that part just didn't happen, cause I love the rest of the book so much.
@@stevegilhool8526 I like that it's suitably shocking. I like that it's a clear demarcation between childhood and adulthood. I like that it uses love and intimacy as a weapon against darkness, particularly for a group of characters who have not experienced a lot of love or intimacy elsewhere in their lives. And I really like that it centers the feminine, via Beverly, as the pathway and conduit toward healing. I've never really thought about all of that specifically before, so thanks for making me articulate it!
12 years old !! You nearly became an L Ron acolyte. I'm not surprised Snoozerson is a fan of the book, that tells you everything. You've got some real narcolepsy epics in this list. I fell asleep at least 5 times while watching this. A new record. 😉 My favourite long books are all non-fiction: The Reckoning (David Halberstam) and Dreadnought (Robert K Massie).
I've read a few Lee Child books but they blend in my mind.
I think 75% of the books on my TBR are huge books (I already read a lot of the shorter ones 🤦♀️). 7 are Tom Clancy books (old hard covers). So much stuff happens in these books, I couldn't tell you what exactly happens either.
And I have about a dozen of Stephen King's books waiting for me. 📚📚❤
Here’s my top 10 longest books, according to Goodreads:
1) Les Miserables (1463pgs)
2) War and Peace (1444 read three times)
3) Reapers Gale (1280, and three other Malazan books over 1200 pages, all read 3x)
4) The Count of Monte Cristo (1276)
5) Executive Orders by Clancy (1273)
6) The Way of Kings (1258, and the other Stormlight books all over 1000, 3x)
7) The Witching Hour by Anne Rice (1207)
8) A Storm of Swords (1177, 2x)
9) Capital Vol. 1 by Karl Marx (1152)
10) Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson (1152)
If In Search of Lost Time by Proust is a single novel, it easily tops the list at 4215 pages. Also, Goodreads says I’ve read 45 books that are over 1000 pages. Guess I like long books.
The Stand was the book I used to try out Audible.... I listened to it during the Pandemic which was a bit surreal... I didn't continue with Audible....audiobooks are not for me...
You cracked me up with this Jim 😆
My longest books I've read are probably Romance of the Three Kingdoms and Water Margins Chinese classic literature
Would anyone recommend Stephen King's Insomnia? I have a copy, but haven't read King so thought I might give it a try. 750 pages, though.
I haven't read that particular one yet. But I found a reddit thread "Have never read Stephen King. Is Insomnia a okay place to start?" Opinions seem to be mixed.
I really liked Insomnia but has some links to other King novels so may not be best book of his to start with
Does Shogun Count? A Great Book!.....The Stand? Definitely worth it....Tom Clancy? ALWAYS a suspenseful treat!
Isn't A Storm of swords longer than A feast for crows? 🤨🤨
I think it is. But I read the edition(s) that splits it into two books
@@CriminOllyBlog
ah okay...but technically it should count. It's still one book.
@@Ninaofthe90s True - love your avatar btw, Ben is one of my fave TV characters (assuming that's who it is!)
@@CriminOllyBlog yes. Thank you - Someone who appreciates the great Ben Linus. 👍❤️ Also one of my favorite characters.
Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell
Brothers karamazov and war and peace. So long and with so many different names.
Fully expected Infinite Jest to be on here but I will only disappointed if it doesn’t make the TBR list.
Interesting that I read several long books last year: 'It' for the first time, 'The Stand' for the 3rd time. I also read the first 5 Game of Thrones books (are there more?) and I also read 'Les Miserables', which was terribly boring but I was determined to finish it. I am not really a King fan, or a fantasy fan, so I am not quite sure what got into me.
Hands down Steven King books!! Couple others, the way of King series were the longest and R A Salvatore the dark Elf series. All good but long, Steven King can be wordy at times.😊
Think the longest books I read were the James Clavell Asian Saga books. Mostly great, a couple were grindy duds.
I'm a bit embarrassed to say out of all those, I've only started reading 1Q84 and paused it to start other series. The biggest standalone book of mine is probably Neal Stephenson's Seveneves at around 900 pages.
Not sure if it can be called a book in the traditional sense because it started as a web series, but Worm by John C. McCrae is quite long at 1.68 million words and it's really good. Otherwise, read quite a few series with more than 20 books in them...
The Stand is also my longest book, unless you are into Russian Lit or High Fantasy I would bet its everybody's longest book!! :D Excluding Steven King, The Hour I First Believed (Wally Lamb) in the low 700's and The Fountainhead (Rand) are up there on my list too.
I've read a book that is 2097 pages long. But I like to be fair and say that it's 2087 pages long when you deduct blank and title pages. I made a short of that book a while ago.
What book was that?
@@michaelmcgee335 The Urantia Book.
I'm also waiting for Ice and Fire. Martin is a wonderful writer. Have you read Fevre Dream? Fantastic vampire novel. My favorite long book is probably IT. The Witching Hour by Anne Rice is fantastic, too.
I haven’t read Fevre Dream but I really need to!
@@CriminOllyBlog Can't wait to hear what you think!
My longest book is Dune at 884 pages. Im going to read 'It' later this year. That's a 1157 page book
I need to reread Dune sometime
Longest books that I've read are those Stormlight books. They're good. But I've found that anything over 600 pages starts to give me flavor-fatigue.
I want to read Battlefield Earth and Hubbard's Mission Earth decology, just to compare the two. It seems to me, and I can't find anyone who's read both to change my mind, that B E is a summary/ short version of the other. I know they're different but it wouldn't surprise me if M E is just a long drawn out version of B E.
I've actually read at least some of ME and whilst they do have similar themes it is pretty different
What is the longest time you/anyone has been happy, and the longest time you have been suffering??
37% in The Deluge (900 pages). I may DNF it.
My favorite long book is The Complete Chronicles Of Conan by Robert E Howard. ⚔️
I guess wrong at the start of the video. I though you are going to go with War&Peace.
Yep, I couldn't finish that one
“Rise and Fall of the Third Reich” longest I’ve read.
💚🖤
English is not my first language, but I thought that it’s called voluminous books and not long books.
I don't know any average English speaker who uses the word "voluminous" in casual conversation. They're long books or epic books, or maybe, if it's a particularly snooty book, tome.
@@Fantumh This is not a casual conversation, it’s a video on UA-cam about literature, so I think it sends a message of not really understanding English , failing to use the correct terminology.
@@sigrid129 This is an informal youtube video. Same thing. "Voluminous book" is certainly correct, but so is calling it a long book or an epic book. Seriously, watch some videos by Oxford educated booktubers and you'll hear them describe long books as---wait for it---long books.
Please practice your presentation.