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What long standalone book is worth its page count?
We just looked at long and short series -- now it's time to do the same for individual books!
What's a long book that's worth its long page count?
Like before, I'm leaving length entirely open to interpretation.
I think the unabridged version of Alexandre Dumas' The Count of Monte Cristo fits the bill here. It's been a few years since I read it but I think my Penguin edition clocked in around 1200 pages or so and every one of them flew by. I would say a lot of the zippy pace comes from it having been originally published in a serialised format, plenty of twists and cliffhangers sprinkled throughout.
I upvoted this earlier but I wanted to comment a bit as well. Because Dumas published serially for a living, his books have a massive amount of inconsistencies, which may not be immediatelly noticeable (they're still great!) If you don't want to guess, I recommend reading an annotated version which points out all the things that should technically not be possible because he forgot or ignored something he'd written before, it's a lot of fun.
Honestly, online fanfiction is a return to literary tradition. Publish novels serially until they’re well over 1,000 pages and they’re filled with continuity errors.
Ah yes, the Wandering Inn
I’d never heard of this before now, and WOW, that is an astonishing amount of writing.
My friend has been trying to get me to read Worm for years, but it feels insurmountable to me at 1.6 million words. Meanwhile The Wandering Inn has 10+ million and is still going!
My personal threshold for when a book starts to feel “long” to me is somewhere around 150,000 words. Worm, by that measure, would be the length of around 11 long books.
The Wandering Inn, however, is closer to 70!
I’m genuinely impressed. Also, I genuinely wish I had that kind of time in my life.
The nice thing is you just read a few chapters a day, or a bunch in a binge, but there's not a lot of expectation of getting through all of it in one go.
I wish my brain would let me do that! It doesn’t like leaving doors open, so to speak, so the idea of not fully finishing what’s there sounds so much worse to me than never starting something like that in the first place (even if it’s something I would love).
This is, of course, why I very rarely read series in the first places. I honestly wish I could toggle my brain’s response off in this area. It would make my life a lot easier and my reading habits a lot different.
I get that, I think it's a pivot to reading serialized fiction in the first place. Like it's more like following comic books where you read and wait and read and wait so the lack of "finished" is sort of fine? Idk how to explain it but it clicks into a different brain spot for me.
Just gonna pile on with your friend. :)
Worm is probably the best superhero world written, even in the decade+ since it finished with The Boys/Watchmen/Marvel exploding in popularity/talent. It has an explanation for why the "cops and robbers" vigilante/villain dynamic is tolerated by society and (eventually) an explanation for why powers exist. Along with more believable personalities and interpersonal conflicts for everyone involved.
Granted despite the format the word count definitely puts it more in the vein of a long book series than a single book.
I was recommended the Wandering inn. I got 1000 pages into it before I researched how long it actually is. It's a fun book but I don't commit that much of my time to one series unless I am in love with it.
I enjoyed the first few books alright, I have several more on audio, but despite being on a real serial fiction kick I've not gotten back to them.
If you like serial fiction, fanfiction is the place to be. Based on what you post here, if you (barring the author shenanigans) like HP, I suggest New Blood
I don't engage with Harry Potter anymore. I have been down the LitRPG/cultivation serial fiction road particularly on RR for a bit and I dabble in fanfic but not gotten into a longer one.
I get you. I had the peril as a kid of reading Ender's Game and greatly enjoying it well before I was old enough to look at an author's Wikipedia page, so I got basically forced towards separating an author from their work long before JKR's nonsense vomit. Fwiw, that work has a major theme of exploration of LGBTQI issues in a magical setting, which is why I suggested it for you in particular.
If you're looking for something good that started on RR, I like Apocalypse Parenting - - unfortunately, it's stubbed, but if you really wouldn't read it for that reason, let me know and I can get you an EPUB of the first book to try; I bought it, and also got a Patreon subscription at one point, so I don't mind sharing book 1. It's less clearly up your alley than the fanfic I suggested, but I like it.
I also really like Will Wight's Cradle, and Dungeon Crawler Carl, though the latter relies on crude humor a bit (not in a way that's disrespectful to the characters, just ridiculous stuff. The AI running everything has a foot fetish)
I'd read basically everything Card had written before I knew who he was. It sucked. But also, much like HP, I can see his beliefs weaved into things now where I didn't know to before so I don't feel those works can be separated.
I've got KU, if it's there, I went for the short term cheap trial to try it out so at least that way the author gets paid. I've read Cradle, not started DCC yet, I enjoy Beware of Chicken, Super Supportive, I Ran Away to Evil, Beers and Beards, Demon World Boba Shop, and Heretical Fishing so far. Oh and He Who Fights With Monsters.
I'm alternating in other books on Audio and physical copies as I go so some of them are slow going. (Or I'm caught up to RR on them)
I have too many different authors whose work I want to explore.
Oh same, I couldn't maintain it
This book is an addictive page turner, which I was not expecting from a “old, long book” but I was immediately hooked. I read the Robin Buss translation and really enjoyed every moment of it. I had long counted it among the classic stories so old and long as to be intimidating but I’m so glad I finally pulled the trigger on it. It’s an intense and gripping tail of revenge that, as the old Klingon on proverb says, is beat served cold.
Glad I checked to see if someone recommended this. Did an audiobook when I picked up my parents from Paris (was currently living in Bavaria courtesy of the US Military) and we put in over 3000 mi/5000 km of driving in less than a week whilst listening.
We still had over 20% of it left, though I got to get back to Vonnegut's Cat's Cradle after... (I sent my dad the mp3s, though told him to also borrow the CD from his local library which is where I got it from at the time.)
I know some people just don't like it and that's OK if it's not for you, but Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell is so damn good.
Neal Stephenson is a good source of huge standalone books. Some people think these are poorly edited and could be trimmed down, but if you aren't one of those people then in 2024 my recommendations would be Anathem and Seveneves.
For Seveneves, don't be afraid to just... stop at the 2/3 mark when the book changes dramatically. It is honestly an entirely separate story and vibe and IMO should have been a follow-up novel instead.
It’s yet another example of Stephenson’s laziness and self-indulgence. He goes on endless info-dump tangents about whatever topic interests him at the moment, and then just stops writing when he gets bored, with only a token effort at wrapping up the story.
I know that for a lot of his readers it’s the journey, not the destination, but I’m not one of those people. I don’t mind the digressions at all, but I expect a professional writer to display a certain level of dedication to their craft. He should grit his teeth and finish the story he started, even if he doesn’t feel like it. After D.O.D.O. and Seveneves I decided I was done with him.
I didn’t mind the change up, but then I read it immediately on release, so the whole book seemed like multiple surprises.
In his defense, I think this was the book that he originally intended to be a video game and shopped it around for years before finally just writing the book. Maybe this has something to do with the unusual structure(?)
I think without that last part, the ending would have been too bleak. I had to take a couple of breaks from Seveneves before I could finish it.
Plus infinity for Anathem
I loved Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrel. One of the only books I downloaded as both an ebook and an audio book so I could read constantly across both mediums when one wasn't an option. It's unique and compelling with a very distinct charm and style. I picked it up because I adored the mini series, and now I just love both for being their own things. I plan on reading more Susanna Clark books for sure.
Umberto Eco's Foucault's Pendulum is a long, at times complex journey through some wonderfully outlandish conspiracy theories, occultism and the Templars, but manages to stay a page turner throughout. It's also one of the funniest, or at least wittiest books that I have read.
I tend to recommend it as a thinking man's Da Vinci Code, no matter how elitist that may sound.
The best long book I've ever read was the unabridged version of Stephen King's The Stand. It's the most gripping, engaging book I've ever read at that length, and I barely put it down for the duration.
Now, I read it in the spring of 2020, so that may have affected my experience, but a friend did read it more recently based on my recommendation and he enjoyed it as well so that's probably not the whole reason.
King is a genius storyteller. I really enjoyed The Stand too. I hesitated to include him in my reply because his body of work is massive, many of his books are really not very good, and which one is best for each reader can depend a lot on taste and personality (and for some people, that's definitely his novellas or short stories, of which he has also written many). If you enjoyed The Stand and aren't too familiar with King's work, more of his novels are likely to be to your taste. Since his career is so long (and his circumstances have changed dramatically throughout his life), he has explored different genres and themes, and some recurring tropes have gone away while others popped up later.
I find it very amusing how his recent works are more likely to include a trope I will describe as "pleasant young people patiently look after cranky elderly men," considering his age. I see what you're doing there, Mr. King!
The first section of Fairy Tale was a wonderful example of this.
There is something oddly brilliant about King's writing, even if I don't typically read his genre. On the one hand I'm fairly certain that most of his books could be edited down to about 60-70% of their published length without really sacrificing much, yet I don't actually mind the length of his novels. They are almost always pleasant to read, especially his more recent work.
It's been ages since I read The Stand, I think around when the 1990s TV adaptation came out, but I also remember it as a really gripping and easy to read, hard to put down novel. But then again, I also vaguely remember that I was reading it through quickly to impress a girl and to have something to talk to her about, so that may have coloured my memories of the book.
The thing is, the more of King I read, the less I accept the notion that he has a genre. Most of what I've read is not horror, which is typically the genre most associated.
Most of what I've read of his would qualify as fantasy or science fiction. If there is any reason to ascribe horror, it's because of his uncanny ability to describe things in viscerl, vivid imagery which makes the reader uncomfortable.
If I was pressed to pick a genre, it would be 'exploring the flaws of the human condition.' Most of his baddies have positive qualities. Most of the good guys have massive character flaws. Most of the evils in his stories are not perpetuated by the big supernatural evil, they are little things perpetuated by the common person, which enables the 'big evil' to take root.
I've read 61 books this year, The Stand is one out of 3 that stand alone to the rest of the books I read this year. It is amazing. I'm amazed it's not as talked about like It and The Shining are.
What were the other two?
Dune by Frank Herbert and Alaska by James Michener, but depending on how I'm feeling I might swap out Alaska for The Overstory by Richard Powers.
Thanks! I love Dune, probably read it 10 times. If you decide to read more of Herbert's work, the next two Dune Messiah and Children of Dune are quite enjoyable (and much shorter). The rest are .... different. Much more abstract and philosophical, but IMO lacking the "magic" that the first novel had.
I have The Overstory in my queue, so I will have to bump it up.
I forgot this was the thread that was supposed to be about standalone books not part of a series. But I read both Messiah and Children of Dune this summer but stopped in the middle of God Emperor. I had other books piling up and I just stopped caring.
The Overstory kind of kicked off my reading marathon this year in a way, it was so not what I expected and opened my mind to what books could be. I've since gotten my mind blown by a myriad of other books since so I'm unsure if it would still have that effect on me, let alone others, but still worth the read if you care at all or want to learn more about trees and the environment.
Not parent poster, but one that I'm halfway through and loving is The Book Censor's Library. It's a fairly short and easy read, though it drops a lot of references to other books.
Simply going by my Goodreads sorted by pagecount the first great novel not part of a series is The Years of Rice and Salt by Kim Stanley Robinson. 763 pages.
It is a alternate history in a world where the black death was slightly more effective and European people and civilization are completely removed from history. An interesting premise and as usual well written by Robinson.
Oh I love this book. Not many books make a lasting imprint on me, but this is one that I think about often in the context of my life and relationships. The alternate history is, of course, fascinating, but the driving force of the novel is the relationships between characters throughout their many lives.
This one would have been my nomination for the book club, but it was too long. Amazing story!
Moby Dick is perfect in my mind.
I have a paperback copy that is annotated with emojis. I wish they’d make a 2024 reissue with modern Unicode—the project was made about ten years ago when emojis were a novelty with much less selection.
I'm slowly wading my way through this one and have to agree so far. The only issue I'm having is it's an e-book and I've been thrown by a couple of recent passages that aren't the best to read on public transport if someone glances over your shoulder.
don't worry about any uncultured swine that doesn't know the classics. :)
I'm really really really hoping Neal Stephenson's Reamde is worth the chonkiness. i just started it, love his stuff but the page count kept me away for very long ever since I failed to finish Cryptonomicon.
Personally I thought it was one of his weakest though there are some interesting moments and ideas throughout.
Second this review. It was fine, but only fine.
Anathem is my personal favourite, but honestly it's tough to go wrong with Neal!
I enjoyed it, but I’m a Stephenson fanboy. Tackled the whole baroque cycle and Cryptonomicon was iconic and prescient. So many of his ideas get poached and retold less well.
That said, a friend once said he thinks editors are afraid of him because he hand-writes everything.
I’d put Seveneves above Reamde personally.
I have quite the backlog of his to churn through as it is. Crypto, Diamond Age, Big U, Fall. I have a habit of picking up his books on the cheap and don't think I've bought one of his at full price ever. I got Snow Crash for free when I was a kid who bought a game called SpectreVR. Don't remember jack about the game. Read the book multiple times til its little mass market cover fell off, and lucked out on a nicer copy from Goodwill
If we're due for a cyberpunk dystopia future, Snow Crash is the one I'm hoping for
Fall is great. Narratively it’s all over the place but I think it absolutely nails American polarization, disinformation, and filter bubbles. A lot of news stories in the past few years have given me flashbacks to events in the book. I’d love to see Stephenson’s take on the same near future concepts, but written post January 6 and the rise of modern AI.
And that’s not even really what the book is about, it’s just window dressing. The A-plot is really bizarre but intriguing consciousness-uploading virtual world stuff that’s great fun to read.
I recently read The Bright Sword by Lev Grossman and thought it was great.
I'd caution against reading anything about the book on Wikipedia, Goodreads, etc. They tend to spoil the book's biggest (albeit early) twist in their summaries.
So I'll say this: it's a pseudo-Arthurian, pseudo-historical tale about a nobody knight in post-Roman Britain who travels to Camelot to meet King Arthur, and nothing goes quite right from there.
Thanks for an intriguing rec without spoilers!
The Stand by Stephen King
11/22/63 by Stephen King
Dune by Frank HerbertAtlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand
The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand
The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt
Alaska by James A. Michener
I shouldn't out myself as an Ayn Rand fan, I know she's not for everyone and I disagree with a good portion of her ideology but I find both stories to be fascinating. The Fountainhead is my favorite of the two, as an artist I align deeply with Howard Roark at times.
The Stand, Dune, and Alaska are my favorite books I read this year. Michener is my latest discovery and I can't wait to read more of his work.
Edit: Crossed off Dune because this is the thread that isn't about a series 😅
Dune isn't that long.
My edition comes out at 520something pages excluding the appendices.
And it definitely is part of a series...
Yes you are correct, I’m getting all these related threads confused.
My mass market paperback of it has tiny type and clocks in at 800 or so pages I think. So it felt long when I read it, but yes please disregard.
Rand is fine if you take it with a healthy dose of reality. Much like my love of Moon Is A Harsh Mistress.
Oh yeah, reality is hard to avoid for me. I can't really bow to the alter of Ayn Rand as I mop floors and fail in my artistic career. Which is probably why I connect with Howard Roark from The Fountainhead...but we don't need to get into that.
Moon is a Harsh Mistress sounds fascinating, plus it's by the same author who wrote Starship Troopers.
I read all of Michener in the 70s and 80s. Hawaii and Poland and Chesapeake are still vividly in my head.
I'm about to dive in really deep, I might read Centennial next. I love the history. It feels like I'm learning something.
11/22/63, by Stephen King. It's not his usual fare; no horror. It really got into my head.
Some spoiler-y thoughts
I've heard some folks say they thought it dragged a bit in the middle, but upon finishing the book, my thought was that he did that on purpose because he wants you to kind of forget why you are where you are, empathizing with the main character. By the time the main character is supposed to do his thing, you're sort of rooting for him to forget about it and mildly horrified when he proceeds. At least, that's how it impacted me.
Incidentally, King mentions Time and Again, by Jack Finney, as a major source of inspiration. That's also a very good and long book. Finney wrote The Body Snatchers (film being Invasion of the Body Snatchers), which is an excellent short read and allegory about the spread of fascism.
I thought they did a great job with the miniseries -- keeping a lot of the details for the readers without flooding the viewer-only crowd with things that don't really matter, but give soul to the story.
Oh yea, this novel is definitely the one that I'll chuck at King newbies. "Here, have a historical fiction/time travel fantasy novel."
I don't see any nonfiction in here yet, so let me nab The Power Broker. It's dense, but honestly the very best biography i have ever read. Caro absofuckinglutely nails it. It feels like you're reading a piece of fiction about some crazy Macbeth-style tragic hero. It is just SO detailed that you might think Caro is making parts of it up. But if you ever listen to Caro speak or read interviews about his process, it's clear that he was simply completely obsessed with Moses for many years. To the point where he almost lost his house and marriage to finish the book (thankfully, it all paid off and they remain happily married).
My one-sentence sell? This is the book for anyone who's ever wondered WTF is wrong with infrastructure in America.
I haven't read The Power Broker, but I have been thoroughly enjoying the podcast mini(?)-series The 99% Invisible Breakdown: The Power Broker that goes through a couple of chapters of the book at a time. Each episode is usually over an hour long and they released them monthly over this last year.
I think I'm up to episode 6, but it's been a fascinating listen and I'm not even from NYC or even the US. Almost makes me want to pick up the book (at least now that there's an ebook version).
I got about 1/4 of the way through it - maybe just past the Niagara stuff? Plus a bit of background and overview of his wider career.
Holy smokes, even that was enough to marvel at the Moses machine. It's late and I can't think of a better word than "marvels" - I certainly don't mean it in a heroic way!
First choice, though I’m not sure how bulky it is, Seveneves by Neil Stephenson. Don’t read a single thing about it. Just read it and take the ride.
For pick 2 I’ll go with Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pillars_of_the_Earth
It’s epic historical fiction… and don’t let the fact that it’s about a church builder stop you if Christianity isn’t your thing. It’s not about Christianity.
Pillars of the Earth is the reason I speak French. Went to check out some old-ass churches and realized I should probably be able to communicate.
This was such a good book!
I recently read Pillars of the Earth and found it to be quite brutal with not enough relief relative to what the characters and the reader go through. I'm still considering reading the related standalones, but... it's going to take me a while to be willing to tackle those.
The Making of the Atomic Bomb is an excellent, comprehensive, and accessible history.
Well, only two come to my mind.
The Godfather by Mario Puzo - I don't read much, but I have read this one three times in recent 10 years. It is absolutely worth it! If I had to praise only one book, this might be the one. For people who don't know - this is the book upon which the movie of the same name was filmed. And the movie is top just as this book is.
Rainbow Six by Tom Clancy - while also having the page length, this one isn't "saga in one" - it is lightweight in content compared to Godfather, yet it is great read for peple who like spec-ops, anti-terrorism, spy, high tech (yet not sci-fi) novels. And once again - this is the book upon which Rainbow Six games were made. At least the first games from around 2000-2005 or so.
I'm about halfway through my second reading of The Ancestor's Tale, by Richard Dawkins. The conceit is that we walk backwards in time, meeting our shared ancestors with other living earthlings as we go.
It's a fascinating, detailed book full of great facts and lucid explanations of various scientific processes, including the best explanation of plate tectonics I've ever seen. It's broken into a bunch of small chunks, so despite its page count (my copy is more than 600 pages) it is easy to work through.
This is also before Dawkins made a second career being a jerk to religious people on twitter, so though he is an opinionated atheist, it's really not a focus of the book.
Edited to remove Shogun as it is part of a series.
The physician by Noah Gordon, coming of age historical fiction where the second half of the book has the English main character going undercover to study medicine under Avicenna because Christians are not allowed entry.
The Longings of Women by Marge Piercy. This book has several main characters including an older homeless woman. The plot ties most threads together at the end.
Roots by Alex Haley,
Wild swans three daughters of China,
The Thorn birds by Coleen McCullough,
Matterhorn by Karl marlantes, a brilliant brutal philosophical Vietnam war novel.
The once and future king by t h White,
The amazing adventures of kavalier and clay by Michael chabon. Life in the comics business.
The book thief by Zusak,
The hearts invisible Furies by John Boyne, tragic, funny, absurd, and the main character grows and changes and improves as more political and social acceptance are given by society.
Did you know The Physician is part of a trilogy? The second book (taking place in early days US) is also pretty good, and the third... We don't talk about it!
Shogun is also kind of in the same situation as you know (I'm pretty sure it was also recommended on the series thread as part of the Asian Saga and you can't have it both ways!) That said, I'd argue Shogun is sufficiently stand-alone.
I remember enjoying Noble House too, quite a bit. It was a cool tapestry of characters and intrigue. I don't recall if there are any racial stereotypes that are too bad for 2024 though.
Thanks for the new information.
I did not know about the trilogy, but the connection between a middle ages book and an American colonies book is pretty tenuous.
I tend to think of series as more linear and connected.
The physician works great as a stand alone novel.