Longest book you've ever read.

[MissScarlett]

My edition was 1480 pages, I think, and I really enjoyed reading it too.

I think mine was about that, too, and I couldn't believe it could be interesting for that many pages, but it was. I thoroughly enjoyed immersing myself in the world of that book.

[Tsuyoiko]

Lots. Anna Karenina, Brothers Karamazov, Lord of the Rings, Don Quixote, The Divine Comedy. I'm reading The Idiot at the moment.

I don't remember how many pages my copy of Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell has, but it's a lot. They flew by though as I got into the story.

I have that on my bookshelf in hardback edition. The size is putting me off a bit as I like to carry the book I'm reading with me

[Zee.]

The longest book I have ever read would have to be the most boring book i have ever read, and that was only about 200 pages long.

[Uberzensch]

Unfortunately, Atlas Shrugged.

However, I'm about 800 pages into the Count of Monte Cristo, so that will be my new longest.

Even then, I hope to follow that with Les Miserables.

[blp]

Unfortunately, Atlas Shrugged.

Probably The Alexandria Quartet. Or maybe that's just the same length as most of the other long books I've read.

[Janine]

Les Miserables ~ Victor Hugo....I read the 4 or 5 book set and it was amazing....best book I have ever read. It was quite long, but worth reading the unabridged version, which was lent to me by a friend. I would highly recommend it.

[grotto]

The Fountainhead, Ayn Rand

[dfloyd]

The Brothers Karamazov, Les Miserables, Gone with the Wind, War and Peace, The Count of Monte Cristo, Bleak House, Our Mutual Friend, Of Human Bondage, The Peloponesion War ... these are books everyone who loves literature should read.

[Snowqueen]

Les Miserables by Victor Hugo, surely a classic novel.

[DanielBenoit]

Probably Les Miserables. I'm planning to read Proust's In Search of Lost Time, and have already been through Swann's Way.

Btw, just as a little fun fact, the longest novel ever written is Henry Darger's The Story of the Two Vivian Girls, it's over 14,000 pages.

[baudolino]

Tolstoy - "War and Peace"
Proust - "In search.."
Hugo - "Les miserables"

Petru Dumitriu - "Family Chronicle" ~2000 pages; a Romanian novel spanning 100 years, from the last half of 19th century, narrating the history of a Boyard family; an ambitious book, with the author clearly influenced by Tolstoi, Balzac and Proust.

[stlukesguild]

just as a little fun fact, the longest novel ever written is Henry Darger's The Story of the Two Vivian Girls, it's over 14,000 pages.

Not even close... and already discussed earlier:

14,000 pages... that's a bit too long for a sexual fantasy... especially of the under-aged variety such as Darger's book is. It also has lot's of pictures. Even at that its not near as long as Adolf Wolfli's epic autobiographical fantasy... the one in which he started out as good ol' Adolf Wolfli... became King Wolfli... then became Emperor Wolfli... and finally Saint Wolfli. That stretched some 45 volumes and covered some 25,000 pages ... including a couple thousand pages illuminated with images as ornately detailed and fantastic as the finest illuminated manuscripts.

More on this subject from earlier posts:

A few more Wolflis:

Unfortunately it will be a good many years before anything approaching a complete facsimile edition of Wolfli's book exists. I wish it were otherwise, but it will certainly be decades, if not longer, before the whole is properly documented and recorded and given anything approaching facsimile form. There are certainly any number of books on Wolfli's work as a whole, but I doubt that either Darger's or Wolfli's works will be really given the appropriate study for what they were as a whole for quite some time. Hell... they haven't even gotten through the entire trunk-cache of Fernado Pessoa's work yet... or even the whole of what exists of Thomas Traherne's writings. And then there's William Blake! Unfortunately... just as with most of Blake's works... Wolfli's tome is no longer a whole self-contained work. It's worth far more to the greedy jacka** dealers if they split up such works and sell them off piece-meal to the highest bidders with little or no concern for the impact upon culture or the artist's intentions. Look at the recent incident involving Blake:

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/16/ar...=1&oref=slogin

And then there's this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marienbad_My_Love

[OrphanPip]

The page length varies so much from edition to edition. Anyway, I think it would be the standard bricks for me too. War and Peace, Anna Karenina, David Copperfield (my edition is an obscene 1262 pages), and The Brothers Karamazov have to be amongst the longest books I've read.

[mal4mac]

Recently - Montaigne's Essays (1283 pages)

The RSC Complete Shakespeare might be the longest (2481 Pages), when I've finished it

The Anatomy of Melancholy by Robert Burton may be longer than Montaigne's Essays. War & Peace almost certainly was, Plato's Complete Dialogues may also be, but I can't be bothered to dig them out to check the number of pages...

[myrna22]

Probably War and Peace. The Brothers Karamozov, which I'm currently reading, is over 900 pages, and I think War and Peace is about the same length, but it's been a long time since I read it.