I'm not sure what the point of keeping up with this sort of statistic would be. We're both of the opinion that quality is more important than quantity, and there are plenty of fat books that aren't particularly good. So how do we determine the longest books we've read? What counts? Does an anthology count? I've read The Riverside Shakespeare with its onion skin pages--does that count?
Gianna:
I read The Essential Plato for school (and that dude must not have had cable cuz man he wrote a lot!), but the longest book I read of my own free will (get it...philosophy theme?) is either Susan Faludi's Backlash or Stiffed. Both were around 600 or so pages I guess; I am really not sure. (And man that woman must not have cable cuz she writes a lot ...). I highly recommend both of those books. She has a third book called The Terror Dream but it looks too long.
Liz
I've read some Tolstoy--both Anna Karenina and War and Peace--but I'm not really much of a fan. I love my Russian classics but Tolstoy is too preachy for my tastes. Instead, I'm picking a 575 page biography of one of the most interesting people in 20th Century history: Pol Pot: Anatomy of a Nightmare by Philip Short. If I'm going to read about totalitarian dictators responsible for mass murders, famine, re-education of the populace, and the removal of currency from an entire country, well, I want that tome to be hefty. And you know I'm going to read that book. I'm eagerly awaiting the 1,000 page definitive biography of Kim Jong Il.
Here's one where the Bible seems, again, the obvious choice. But Infinite Jest is longer.
ReplyDelete"The Terror Dream" is worth the effort.
ReplyDelete