Solzhenitsyn is where we differ, I’m afraid. If I could have back the 37 years it feels I spent reading about building a brick wall in ONE DAY IN THE LIFE OF IVAN DENISOVICH, I’d be very happy. I know it’s a classic and plenty of people love that book, but it is very much not my cup of tea. Like THE STAND, I’ve been holding a grudge against Solzhenitsyn’s other works since.

Longest I’ve ever read will be one of Peter F Hamilton’s, or the Stand. Technically, Hamilton’s Nights Dawn Trilogy is 3 400K volumes of the same book, so I guess it could be counted as a 1.2m word novel. Though I guess if you take that attitude then the Wheel of time series is up around 4m with one book to go. All utterly, utterly brilliant (save crossroads of twilight which even Robert jordan admitted was a mistake).

I think there’s a stigma attached to lengthy books; people instantly think they must be 50% garbage. Not so: what the author is often trying to achieve is a level of immersion you just won’t get elsewhere – the problem is when it goes wrong it manifests in word count which are not necessarily poorly written.

If I can’t pick that one, then it’s probably either The Name of the Wind or The Wise Man’s Fear. I think the second one was longer than the first, but they’re both pretty hefty.

When I was younger, I really enjoyed my dad’s copy of James Michener’s (sp?) Centennial. I think that was the first book I liked that I thought of as “really long.” And I KNEW it was really long because we had it in paperback, and the spine was kind of curved because there were soooo many pages!

Atlas Shrugged – was the longest I’ve read while in school. It was quite intense.

Best,
Suma.

More recently, I’ve read Brandon Sanderson’s 1001-word tome The Way of Kings. Excellent book.

I keep thinking I should read War and Peace, just so I can say I did… but then I’m not all that interested.