Hi there Moon liking your avatar. Why blandman? Not to worry about spoilers I would not reading it anytime soon.
Maybe Cryptonomicon, which is somewhere north of 410K words. Next is probably one of the Malazan books, many of which get close to 400K. Yes, they were all good.
The unredacted version of Stephen King's The Stand. Was it worth it? Sure. King still had ideas to process at the time, and the breadth of the story arguably merited its length. He's known for being longwinded and indulging levels of detail and ancillary character building that doesn't always make sense or pay off, but in The Stand I think it works.
Ah--well, I'd have to get into the characteristics of each book. Cryptonomicon--sprawling, funny, engaging, strange. Typical Neal Stephenson. The Malazan books are epic tomes with interesting events and characters, also somewhat unusual and prone to asides. They're fun.
If we're including non-fiction, it was Larousse Gastronomique, an oversized hardcover of 1030 pages of small print, which I read cover to cover.
Easily The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by E. Gibbon, weighing in at 1,1 million words spread across 700 pages. But that's non-fiction. For fiction, it might be Words of Radiance by Brandon Sanderson. It certainly has the highest page count at 1328, and a word count of roughly 420k. And yes, both are worth reading, if you're into ancient history and High Fantasy respectively. Words of Radiance (everything by Sanderson, really) isn't really my brand of Fantasy, but I enjoyed it well enough. I might pick up the sequel at some point.
The Count of Monte Cristo (abridged 634pgs). It was pretty good, and interesting. Though I have one Trilogy in a single book that is 966 pgs. that I have yet to read. So I will let you know how it was.
I read that book. It started off promising but I did not go along with the story later -- it seemed to petre off into unconvincing meanderings----I think putting 'American' in front of anything makes me suspicious.
Thomas Mann's Zauberberg [Magic Mountain]--- the great man does waffle on. One part he describes a record player and takes four pages of monumental verbosity that has then won him acclaim. The only one of the family of writers is Klaus Man and his Mephistopheles. But that is not very long.
Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, by Susanna Clarke. (782 pages) The magic and whatnot was a bit trite, and the dialogue sometimes tedious. In the end, it was a little like reading Pride and Prejudice, but with magicians, and a body count. I will tell you though, the characters stuck with me long after I finished the book. And that rarely happens.
I did. It gave my cooking a stronger foundation, and I still refer to it. Still pondering the original question. I've read a lot of long novels, but none of them stand out as being the "longest". When I finally get through a Tolstoy (tedious because I'm dyslexic), it will probably be one of those.
longest as in word wise, The Host by Stephanie Meyer. Didnt seem all that long. I devoured it! I liked it more than the Twilight Saga, tbh. Sure it had flaws and a Bella-esque main character, but I guess I was just more in to aliens and the "end of the world" vs. vampires and werewolf high school drama (I think I was in middle school or early HS when the book came out). Longest book as in density and the feeling like it took FOREVER to get through would be Heart of Darkness. Its literally only 78 pages, but I felt like it was like 600! i'd fall asleep, wake up and still hate life. I'd read a whole page and not remember anything and have to go back and reread it! It took me a while to get through it and I still don't remember anything other than its about a guy who goes to the Congo and starts to rethink his life because things go to crap.
Wait, I take back my vote. Stephen Kings It is the longest book I've ever (attempted) to read, but found myself sleeping on. Until one day I ended up dropping it on my nose and gave up. Since the title says read and didn't speicfiy finished I'll go with that book. No I didn't enjoy it. Because it was boring to me. Because, because. Hope that answers all questions.
The Woman who Lost her Soul is a very long and amazing story. It was a Pulitzer finalist a few years back. It's over 1k pages but well worth the read.
That's a good point. In that case, mine is Anna Kerenina, which I've attempted to read three times but keep getting stymied by the similar character names. Otherwise, I think I'd like it just fine.
I'm wondering what a story where all characters have the same name would read like. 10/10 would most likely throw against the nearest wall in confusion.
They may not be identical, but they're similar enough that my dyslexia perceives them that way and drives me nuts...which is frustrating, because I enjoy the settings, plot, and amount of detail. And then there are the footnotes... That book is my Everest, and I will conquer it one day. (ETA: Pulled the book off the shelf just now, and I see that on my last attempt I stopped at page 262 of 817.)