It's Friday - 4/2

[ufcasey]

What have you read this week? Any reviews or ratings or recommendations?


QOTW
What is the longest book you have ever read (or one of the longest if you aren't sure)? Was it worth reading, considering the book length?

[Vespasia]

I already mentioned the two books I read earlier in the week in the March thread and I started The Nature of the Beast by Louise Penny yesterday. 

QOTW: I  thought it would be something by Ken Follett but it looks like my longest book is The Fiery Cross by Diana Gabaldon.  I don't remember the specifics but I was incredibly disappointed in this book, particularly since I had waited so long for it to come out.  I was actually so turned off that I waited 15 years to read the next book in the series! I generally liked A Breath of Snow and Ashes but it was also too damn long and drawn out so I still haven't picked up the next book 5 years later.  

Heck, I still haven't watched the newest season of the show because I think it covers Fiery Cross. I will eventually but it's not worth going out of my way to get a Starz subscription for. 

[tacokick]

I must have read a lot early in the month because I didn’t read much this past week.

Sorrow and Bliss by Meg Mason (I liked it a lot!)

American Baby: A Mother, a Child, and the Shadow History of Adoption by Gabrielle Glaser (okay)

Who is Maud Andrews? by Alexandra Andrews (messy)

Aftershocks by Nadia Owusu (good but I didn’t love the format)


QOTW: We had to read some Tolkien in middle school so maybe that? Now the longest books I read are probably the Tana French books. My husband loves long books (and trilogies) but the genres I tend to read aren’t prone to epics.

[meowmaps]

I finished A Thousand Ships earlier in the week. I had to read it very quickly because I somehow allowed my loan time to run down. It’s about the Trojan War from the women’s perspectives. Now I’m reading The Soul of a Woman by Isabel Allende. Really good so far.

QOTW: I can’t say definitively but my guess is it would be Anna Karenina or Gone With the Wind. Both are over 1,000 pages as I recall.

[charlatti]

I’m reading The Bone Maker by Sarah Beth Durst. Slow start but I’m enjoying it now.

QOTW: According to Goodreads, my longest is I know This Much is true by Wally Lamb. My other long books are all middle grade or YA.

[aurora]

I'm listening to The Exiles. I haven't started a new paper book since finishing Drums of Autumn a couple of days ago.

QOTW: oh, this is a hard one. I read a lot of very long books and tend to like them. Les Miserables is a candidate for longest, and I really liked it. I liked the first 90% of War and Peace but could have done without the philosophy lesson at the end. The Stand was also good most of the way through, but finishing strong is not always Stephen King's steering point. Probably some of GRR Martin's Song of Ice and Fire are contenders for longest, as well.

I wonder if there is a place you can compare books by estimated word count since pages can change a lot by format?

[aurora]

Vespasia, sometimes they run together but isn't The Fiery Cross the one where something like the first 200 pages are all on one day? I like Gabaldon a lot but I do remember thinking that was a little outrageous.

[travella]

I finished The Exiles and am almost finished with The Searcher by Tana French.

QOTW: The Fiery Cross was the longest book I've read. I think it was worth it. I've enjoyed the Outlander series and cannot wait for the next book!

[aurora]

I found this page with quotes counts for some popular books:

blog.fostergrant.co.uk/2017/08/03/word-counts-popular-books-world/

Here are the ones over 400,000 that I have read from that page:

1. The entire Lord of the Rings series (including The Hobbit) – 576,459 words

2. War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy – 561,304 words

3. Les Miserables, Victor Hugo – 530,982 words

4. A Storm of Swords – 424,000 words

5. A Dance with Dragons – 422,000 words

6. Gone with the Wind, Margaret Mitchell – 418,053 words

ETA since it's come up in a couple of posts, The Fiery Cross is just under 500,000 words according to www.bookconfessions.com/2007-42-the-fiery-cross-diana-gabaldon/

[tacokick]

Apr 2, 2021 17:16:22 GMT -5 aurora said:

I found this page with quotes counts for some popular books:

blog.fostergrant.co.uk/2017/08/03/word-counts-popular-books-world/

Here are the ones over 400,000 that I have read from that page:

1. The entire Lord of the Rings series (including The Hobbit) – 576,459 words

2. War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy – 561,304 words

3. Les Miserables, Victor Hugo – 530,982 words

4. A Storm of Swords – 424,000 words

5. A Dance with Dragons – 422,000 words

6. Gone with the Wind, Margaret Mitchell – 418,053 words

ETA since it's come up in a couple of posts, The Fiery Cross is just under 500,000 words according to www.bookconfessions.com/2007-42-the-fiery-cross-diana-gabaldon/

Interesting! I don’t think I’ve read anything on any of those lists lol One Tolkien in middle school and I’m pretty sure I just skimmed.

[estrellita]

Currently working on The Lost Apothecary. So far I like it, for the most part.

Longest book according to Goodreads is Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.

[Nonny]

Currently over halfway through The Echo Wife, and somehow it feels clunky and repetitive but also utterly captivating, and I can't put it down.

QOTW: Goodreads says it's The Wool Omnibus, at ~1800 pages, and I did read it all at once, but that's a 5 book compendium so it doesn't feel like it counts. And if we're counting an entire series, it's The Dark Tower anyway.

For a single, stand-alone book it looks like The Stand.

[rainbowchip]

I finished Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. Read this with my kids for the first time!

Also An Offer From a Gentleman by Julia Quinn. Pretty standard book in this series it seems. At least the plot was different than the first two which has the exact same plot!

QOTW: like others, The Firey Cross is my longest book.

[Deleted]

Finished Anxious People by Fredrik Backman. Loved! But i love all of his work.

Reading Culture Warlords: My Journey Into the Dark Web of White Supremacy by Talia Lavin. It's important, hard to read, well-researched, well-written, terrifying, enraging, sickening, and depressing. I cant say i like it, but that's nor the point of this book. Recommend if you are interested in learning more about this topic.

QOTW: Gone with the Wind, Some of the later Earth's Children books (Clan of the Cave Bear series), Shantaram, somethingby Ken Follett i cant remember the name of. Loved them all, but i love big, epic, sprawling saga type books.