Which was the longest book you ever read and how long has it taken?

[noname223]

Only 40 pages left and then I finished Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace. It was on my bucket list and actually I did not think I could actually achieve that. If I died in October I would not have finished it. The book has roughly 1515 pages and it took me 5 months to finish it I started it in August. I am such a slow reader. I start to ruminate but i was also researching technical terms which are used frequently in this book.

Prior to that my longest book was the last Harry Potter book with 768 pages. I can remember I read it while I was in school and my mom told me. Maybe I should instead study harder for my German exam and watch in my freetime TV. As of today she recommends me to watch TV instead of reading books.

 

[ebg]

I think the longest book I have read is Crime and Punishment, which is around 650 pages. Congratulations on reading Infinite Jest, it'd probably take me a year to read that lol. It took me around 2-3 months to read Crime and Punishment.

 

[pollux]

War and Peace, the edition I had was divided in 4 volumes. I read one a day, so it took me 4 days.

 

[ben_]

I never had attention for any reading, let alone long books. It makes me wanna sleep. I guess Bulgakov's Master and Margarita and Sylvia Plath's Bel Jar might be the somewhat longer ones that I've actually finished.

 

[Forever Sleep]

I'm terrible with reading books. I wouldn't even know. I think I may have read Crime and Punishment at one stage though so, as ebg said, it might be that. I did a fair bit of reading for uni dissertations though (naturally,) so- maybe one of them.

A funny side story though... I heard a story where a guy used to spend his lunch hour in a London bookstore reading War and Peace. The owner couldn't believe the audacity of the man so, when he'd finished, he presented him with the book for free.

 

[bitcrushing]

vol 1. of capital, ~1k pages took about 6 months of reading, 2hrs commuting during the week with naps inbetween

 

[LostLily]

1200 pages for lord of the rings . Took 12 days

 

[Alexei_Kirillov]

The Bible probably took me the longest (a good 8 months and that was even with skipping some parts!).

vol 1. of capital, ~1k pages took about 6 months of reading, 2hrs commuting during the week with naps inbetween

Also read Capital (though this was years ago). Did you retain any of it?

 

[Dr Iron Arc]

Not a book technically but I've read Homestuck, aka the modern Ulysses. It puts the Bible to shame in terms of quantity.

 

[bitcrushing]

The Bible probably took me the longest (a good 8 months and that was even with skipping some parts!).


Also read Capital (though this was years ago). Did you retain any of it?

can't say I have besides the general gist of how he describes the circulation of capital and some of the historical anecdotes, which were probably more convincing than the theory itself

 

[Aergia]

The Crimson Petal and the White by Michel Faber. It was around 850 pages and I think it took me around 2 months. It was compelling—I'm just a slow reader with a terrible attention span.

Got a copy of IJ on black Friday but it's probably going to stare at me intimidatingly from my shelf for a while before I pick it up.

 

[LaVieEnRose]

I read all approximately 2400 pages of Proust's In Search of Lost Time. In the original French. As a second language. It took like two months if I recall.

Yeah. In a life of otherwise rancid underachievement I do consider that my greatest accomplishment.

(Just don't ask what it was about. Something about a cookie.)

 

[DarkRange55]

Hmm… well if this counts, probably: The Story of Civilization by Will and Ariel Durant, 11-volumes, total of 13,549 pages.
I think it's actually one of the best/important reads.