Top Ten Tuesday is a meme hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl, featuring a different top 10 theme each week. This week’s topic is The Longest Books I’ve Ever Read. I actually did this topic back in 2015 as a TTT freebie, and that list hasn’t changed… so I thought I’d repeat those, but also mention the longest books I’ve read more recently (2017-2018).
First, my ten longest books ever (according to Goodreads, based on mass market paperback editions):
1. Les Miserables by Victor Hugo (1,463 pages)
2. The Fiery Cross by Diana Gabaldon (1, 443 pages)
3. A Breath of Snow and Ashes by Diana Gabaldon (1,439 pages)
4. A Storm of Swords by George R. R. Martin (1,177 pages)
5. The Stand by Stephen King (1,167 pages)
6. Shogun by James Clavell (1,210 pages)
7. War and Remembrance by Herman Wouk (1,056 pages)
8. The Witching Hour by Anne Rice (1,038 pages)
9. Hawaii by James Michener (1,036 pages)
10. Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell (1,011 pages)
My more recent reading has been a bit less ambitious — here are my longest reads from 2017 – 2018:
1. Written in My Own Heart’s Blood by Diana Gabaldon (1,117 pages)
2. Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow (826 pages)
3. The Sweet Far Thing by Libba Bray (819 pages)
4. Rise: A Newsflesh Collection by Mira Grant (816 pages)
5. Sleeping Beauties by Stephen King and Owen King (702 pages)
6. Lethal White by Robert Galbraith (656 pages)
7. The Angry Tide by Winston Graham (624 pages)
8. Feed by Mira Grant (599 pages)
9. Caliban’s War by James S. A Corey (595 pages)
10. Ivanhoe by Sir Walter Scott (592 pages)
What books are on your list this week? Please share your TTT link!
Okay, I’m impressed. I have that Hamilton biography, and the only reason I haven’t read it yet is the length. 826 pages and it still isn’t on your longest books of all time list? Wow.
The Hamilton biography actually went pretty quickly, believe it or not. I started it as an audiobook, but couldn’t focus on the details, so switched over to print (and had to start over again from the beginning.) This was in the midst of my Hamilton-mania, so being able to sing relevant songs to myself while reading definitely helped! 🙂
Oh that’s good to know! I do look forward to reading it, even though it’s long. I suspect that reading the bio will have me playing the soundtrack on a loop again, though. 😉
You certainly do like big books! I bow down to you for reading Les Miserables!
I seem to get inspired by musicals — I read Les Miserables ages ago after getting hooked on the Broadway soundtrack! It probably helped that I’d just moved to a new town and wasn’t working, so I had plenty of time on my hands for tackling such a huge book. 🙂
Sooo many impressive numbers here! I’ve been seeing Gone With the Wind a lot today. I don’t think I could read such a big book today.
It’s definitely hard to get motivated to start a huge book now, unless it’s by one of my super-favorite authors. Maybe it’s partly related (for me) to doing Goodreads challenges — in the time it takes to read one huge book, I could read 2 or 3 smaller ones!
Ooh, I could have had Gabaldon and Bray – I had no idea they were such huge books.
Lynn 😀
Gabaldon books are huge! I didn’t really realize that the Gemma Doyle (Libba Bray) books were that big… but now that I’m looking, they do seem to take up quite a bit of shelf space.
I like how you divided your list. A Storm of Swords is the longest book I’ve read. The Stand made my list, too.
The Stand is so good… but yeah, at the time when I read it, I think it was one of the longest I’d ever read.
This is the second list I’ve seen that has The Stand on it. Am currently reading it. Just started.
I hope you enjoy it! It’s been at least 15 years since I read it, so I really need a refresher. Maybe it’s time for a reread!
Impressive – Some of the longest books I’ve ever read are War and Peace (read it as part of a college course), Gone With the Wind and Atlas Shrugged (which took me many months to finish). I’d say any book now that is over 450 pages qualifies as a long book, wouldn’t you?
Ha, I’d say anything over 400 is long! (As a rule of thumb, my book group sets a limit at 400 — anything more, and we start losing participants. It’s hard to commit to a long book for book group when we all have so many other books to read as well). I read Anna Karenina ages ago. I wonder why that didn’t come up for me when I was looking for my longest books? It certainly felt like it went on forever!
I’ve seen quite a few of George RR Maritins books on people’s list today, they sure are long books.
Here is my TTT: https://theteareader.wordpress.com/2018/10/09/top-ten-tuesday-49-longest-book-ive-ever-read/
GRRM’s books are huge, and so dense! Thank goodness for fandom wiki pages, otherwise it would be impossible to keep all the characters straight..
I’ve been wanting to read Les Mis since forever! Shame I haven’t gotten around to it yet.
* TTT: Top 10 longest books I’ve read in 2018 🌻❤🌻❤
It’s worth the effort! Although be aware ahead of time that there are some realllly long sections about the Paris sewers and convents and other elements that are really just background, but seem to go on forever. 🙂 (I’m still glad I read it.)
The Stand was a beast! I’m so glad I finally got around to reading it though. 🙂
I really need to read The Stand again someday. I read it back in high school, and only remember the vague outlines. Then again, with so many of King’s books yet to read, it feels silly to spend time on something I’ve read already.
I have quite a few Diana Gabaldon novels on my TTT post this week.
Here’s a link to my TTT post this week: http://captivatedreader.blogspot.com/2018/10/top-ten-tuesday-longest-books-ive-ever.html
I don’t think Diana Gabaldon knows how to write a short book! (Well, there are the Lord John books… )
I agree, big books are great! The Stand and Storm of Swords are perfect examples 🙂
I did NOT know that Les Miserables was THAT long, wow!! And for some reason I thought Shogun was longer haha
Some books are long… and some just feel that way! 🙂
Les Mis and GOT would definitely make it onto my list!
Finishing those books definitely felt like major accomplishments!