The biggest book that you have ever read

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Kathy
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Postby Kathy » 2005-02-21, 12:45

I have read Lord of the Rings (with Silmarillion, which I adore - certainly in English, I doubt it can be readable in translation, at least a Russian one, - and Hobbit) and War and Peace, but I think I wouldn't name them as the longest I've read. Probably because I liked them and they were fascinating. And also books about Harry Potter so quickly come to an end. :( :)
I think The Forsyte Saga is rather long. Maybe because it's a bit slower reading. Although I also liked that one very much and I'm trying now to collect all of it in English and that's not easy. Maybe even it would be considered here as several books, as they are published separately in English. But I read it in Russian just as one book in several volumes.

And I'm also thinking about "Kristine, Lawrence's daughter" by Sigrit Unset (sorry, don't know the spelling of her name in English) - it was rather long, four volumes, as far as I remember.

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Postby Karavinka » 2005-09-25, 5:58

The longest novel I've ever read was '아리랑(Arirang)' by 조정래Cho Jeongrae. It's made of 12 volumes and each volume is about 330~350pages long. Koreans are quite fond of such hellishly long novels :) There are a few other 10-volume ones as well, including The Romance of Three Kingdoms.

The longest stuff I've read in English is either the Lord of the Rings by JRR Tolkien or The Capital by Marx. (Dunno which one's longer, I don't have either at my hand right now..) In French "La Dame aux Camélias" by Dumas and In Japanese "サロメの乳母の話" by Shiono. Both aren't really long ones.


I also read about half of the Collected Works of Kim Il-Sung, 22 of 47 volumes, 4~500pages each. I know they're FAR FROM literary values and.. well, basically they're gibberish. 8)

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Postby paruha » 2005-09-25, 8:36

About a week ago I finished "Тютюн" (Tobacco) by Dimitar Dimov. It was around 950 pages, and although it was from my booklist for school I can sat I enjoyed it. :)

I guess most of you have read way bigger books than me : oops:
Защо да харчим пари, които нямаме, за да купим неща, които не са ни нужни, така че да впечатлим хора, които не харесваме?

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Postby Alcadras » 2005-09-25, 10:52

harry potter and the goblet of fire :D

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Postby The Masked Unmasker » 2005-09-25, 11:04

noir wrote:I don't have either [s]at my hand[/s] on hand right now..) In French "La Dame aux Camélias" by Dumas and In Japanese "サロメの乳母の話" by Shiono. Both aren't really long ones.


I also read about half of the Collected Works of Kim Il-Sung, 22 of 47 volumes, 4~500pages each. I know they're FAR FROM literary values and.. well, basically they're gibberish. 8)


I must say that I'm suitably impressed by the breadth of your reading.

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Postby Ariki » 2005-09-29, 4:38

Some of the longest books I have read (from memory, I've read quite a few books) were -

The Lord Of The Rings part 1 (The Fellowship)

Not Without My Daughter (forgotten the author's name)

Ngā Iwi O Tainui (both the Māori and the English - it's a bilingual book, with proper translations on each side of the page)

Books 4 - 6 of the Harry Potter series. Can't wait till number 7!

The Book Of Mormon (so far, I've only read it cover to cover in English, but I'm currently reading it in Māori and Tahitian). This is how I'm learning and strengthening my knowledge of Tahitian. By learning it through Māori, I'm cutting through 95% of the translation issues between English and any given Polynesian language. The last 5% of problems, are due to words either losing or gaining cultural meaning, or word deletion due to language loss (Tahitian suffers this, and this may be a result from French language imposition, OR, from the mono-lingual mono-culturalist missionaries who came and simplified the entire language).

For example, we have mahara (to be remembered) for New Zealand Māori, ma`ara in Cook Islands Māori. For Tahitian, we have, ha`amana`o - which means 'cause to think about'. Quite clearly, it is either due to French, or foreign language interference, that ha`amana`o is preferred, over what may have been proto-Tahitian 'mahara'.

I'm also an avid reader. I would like to get my hands on an English adaptation of the Qu`ran (I'm sorry if I have misspelt the name, this is out of pure forgetfulness).
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Postby icx » 2005-09-30, 17:34

The longest book i've ever read... Hmm... Not too long, about 400-500 pages... :wink:

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Postby alois » 2005-09-30, 21:39

The biggest book that you have ever read!


Bhutan 8)

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Postby allemaalmeezinge » 2006-01-29, 2:20

Anonymous wrote:
I tried Also Sparch Zarathustra too... i still havent finished it....I think i'm at page 15 or so...And i started more than 1 year ago...



You dont have to read it in one take. Nietzsche's language is in general so powerful that you cant avoid its beauty even if you just browse by and read some sentence here and there...
I really admire his style..
I can also recommend Nietzsche's poems which are equally full of pure energy bound to written words..

(funnily the young Nietzsche lacked orthography skills and was always reproved for that by his professors - that made him my hero of younger years =) )

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Postby Hoogstwaarschijnlijk » 2006-02-01, 12:32

Someone said that the biggest book he (she) read was Middlemarch. I have read that too, can't remember that it was so big, but okay.
And I have read that book Wild Swans from Jung Chang (I believe it was) and De ontdekking van de hemel from Harry Mulisch.

I don't know what the biggest is from that three.
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Postby Guillem » 2006-02-01, 12:54

yabba wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
I tried Also Sparch Zarathustra too... i still havent finished it....I think i'm at page 15 or so...And i started more than 1 year ago...



You dont have to read it in one take. Nietzsche's language is in general so powerful that you cant avoid its beauty even if you just browse by and read some sentence here and there...
I really admire his style..
I can also recommend Nietzsche's poems which are equally full of pure energy bound to written words..

(funnily the young Nietzsche lacked orthography skills and was always reproved for that by his professors - that made him my hero of younger years =) )

I like Nietzsche too, but something tells me I should better read his works in German (if I spoke it :roll:), since I think some of that power gets lost in the translation. My philosophy teacher actually used to say he liked better the way he presented his ideas than the ideas themselves ;)
Last edited by Guillem on 2006-04-29, 20:12, edited 1 time in total.

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Postby kiki1018 » 2006-04-29, 19:31

the biggest book i read recently was four past midnight by stephen king it had 700 & something pages but last year i read a book the complete works of the bronte sisters that was well over a thousand pages but i didnt 2 of the stories because i had read them already so that knocked off 400 pages there.

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Postby menetekel » 2006-05-16, 14:08

The biggest one was "A la recherche du temps perdu" by Marcel Proust (about 4200 pages), then "Fluß ohne Ufer" by Hans Henny Jahnn (about 2500 pages - his style is ingenious and I think he has done as much for German literature as Joyce has for English literature), then "Jospeh und seine Brüder" by Thomas Mann (about 1800 pages). That's my so-called trilogy of the epic novels. :wink:

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Postby BloodOrange » 2006-05-30, 9:11

The biggest books I've read were written by Lithuanian writers and I read them because they were on the curriculum :D But I found them very ineresting. First was "Vilius Karalius" (it's the name and surname of a man), written by Ieva Simonaityte. It's about life of Lithuanian tillers in I suppose nineteenth century. And another one was "Altorių šešėly", about a priest who didn't have any calling for that and flounced about between public opinion and his inner feelings. Both books contain about 600 pages, but are very interesting if you know the historical context ;)

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Postby kirsikka » 2006-08-14, 23:47

The biggest book that I've read it was 'A la recherche du temps perdu' by M.Proust. That was my real addiction for long time and finally I've written my thesis about this novel. The others: series by Henry Miller - I don't remember their English titles - I should check up... And when I was a child - 'Winnetou' by Karol May :lol:
A propos 'Ulisses' by J.Joyce - I've lost hope that I can finish it... but one day, perhaps...
'Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing' H.Keller

Śrāmaṇera

Postby Śrāmaṇera » 2007-05-18, 13:08

Same here for Ullyses... I've read up to page 653 or something like that... I was a real coward and gave up.
But I'm willing to give it another try !

The longest book I've ever read is probably Les Misérables by Victor Hugo.

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rainBELL
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Postby rainBELL » 2007-07-05, 20:59

i cannot fully enjoy reading a book that is over 350 pages.
please correct my mistakes, thank you~ :)

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War and Peace

Postby vinodxx » 2007-11-20, 14:07

War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy

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Re: The biggest book that you have ever read

Postby justberta » 2009-08-10, 18:41

East of eden and Roots.
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Re: The biggest book that you have ever read

Postby BezierCurve » 2009-08-10, 18:45

The Bible.
Then the JavaScript Bible.
Then the PHP Bible.
Brejkam wszystkie rule.

"I love tautologies, they're so ... tautological." Hunef


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