How long books

Even more than a few others here, this is a unified work — gorgeously written, recursive but not repetitive, and profound even when chronicling the shallowest of socialites. But dissipation of the novel, whose title character is a reflective blank, mirrors the decadence of Viennese society around World War I — prosperous, rule-bound, beautiful, and doomed. The Lord of the Rings , by J. Tolkien , 1, pp. The trilogy is available in single volumes and best read that way.

The pioneer of modern fantasy was also its perfecter, because he knew what it meant to create a universe. Life and Fate , by Vasily Grossman , pp. Though often compared to War and Peace , the long-suppressed World War II novel has more in common with war journalism, which Grossman practiced as a Soviet reporter on the front. The Power Broker , by Robert Caro , 1, pp. Before he embarked on his multivolume biography of Lyndon B.

Shogun , by James Clavell , 1, pp. Canopus in Argos: Archives , by Doris Lessing —, 1, pp. Come for the fiction, not the science. Good and evil are complicated but simply drawn, as in his more typical horror fiction. But given the space, King excels at texture. The Pillars of the Earth , by Ken Follett , pp. Like Lessing and King, suspense writer Follett went for broke in a genre new to him.

Strap in for a page book about trees. Though it lags a bit at the end when it succumbs to polemic, for the most part, Powers manages to entertain, inform, and inspire action in the most high profile work of climate fiction yet. Jemisin, The Fifth Season pages. This is the most important work of speculative fiction written in the last ten years.

Umberto Eco, The Name of the Rose pages. A murder mystery concerning a labyrinthine library, and probably the only bestselling novel to be based on semiotics. Min Jin Lee, Pachinko pages. This four-generational saga of one Korean family who must give up their home for Japan is an absolutely captivating read. David Mitchell, Cloud Atlas pages.

Argue about the connections between them all you like, but for sheer delight, you could hardly do any better than this epic novel. Tana French, The Witch Elm pages. The Witch Elm is also perhaps her most fully realized, investigating not just a murder but privilege and society and the notion of memory—or sanity—itself.

Margaret Atwood, The Robber Bride pages. The writing is lovely too. John Crowley, Little, Big pages. Jeffrey Eugenides, Middlesex pages. A complex and engaging multi-generational family novel that is also one of the few to focus on an intersex character and also one of the best books ever written about Detroit. If you love language, or novels that play with form and function, this is the first book on this list you should read.

Byatt, Possession pages. Hilary Mantel, Wolf Hall pages. Alexander Chee, The Queen of the Night pages. The perfect novel to whisk you away for hours on end. Donna Tartt, The Secret History pages. I never remember how long The Secret History actually is—it is slim and sharp in my mind. But this beloved narrative of bacchanal, murder, friendship, and most of all, beauty is an enveloping, involving read, from its perfect prologue to its disastrous end.

Isabella Hammad, The Parisian pages. A historical novel that is also a political novel that is also a love story, and every page a vibrant pleasure to read. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Americanah pages. This love story-cum-immigration story, tracking two Nigerian lovers as they leave their country—one for the US, one for London—and try to find their way back together, is a chummy, clear-eyed delight for every one of its pages.

Sarah Waters, Fingersmith pages. We gathered a list of every New York Times 1 Non-Fiction Bestseller for the past 7 years and analyzed how the average length has evolved. Since , the average length of a bestseller has dropped steadily from year to year. However, the drop in the overall average length of bestsellers over the last 7 years points to a marked trend in the overall preferences of the average reader.

The longest?