What was the largest book you've read?

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The Bible? Encyclopedia? (I’ll honestly salute you if you read the whole of the latter… that thing is huge)
 
I cannot say I sat down and read the Bible front to back,although I have read alot over the years. The largest book I ever read a few years back was Death of a President by William Manchester, about President John F. Kennedy, at the request of the Kennedy family about the events before, during and after the assassination of the President.Excellent book. written 1967.
 
I have read the Bible cover to cover in the past. I’m in the process of doing it again now.

I read an unabridged English translation of War and Peace in high school. A lot of it, particularly the “war” part, was pretty unintelligible and boring, but I did read it all.
 
Hmm.

I don’t remember. 🤔

I think it was North and South. There was a miniseries about it with Patrick Swayze.

The Divine Comedy is in three books, I read that but not all at once.

I don’t really remember.

I read book one of the “Neapolitan Novels” and part of book 2.
 
If you count the Bible as a single book, then it was that. That said, I’ve only done a “read the Bible in a year” with a Protestant Bible, so it was missing seven books and parts of Esther and Daniel.

Beyond that, I read a lot of The Lord of the Rings. I didn’t finish it, but I think I read more of that than any other book. Honestly, I don’t remember it too well beyond what made it into the movies and the Barrow-downs. As blasphemous as it may sound, I wasn’t a huge fan of Tolkien’s verbosity, though I might appreciate his writing more now that I’m older. Again, this is taking it as a single book, which I know some die-hard fans insist on treating it as.
 
ZMystiCat said:
As blasphemous as it may sound, I wasn’t a huge fan of Tolkien’s verbosity,
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Understandably on a Catholic website, Tolkien has a lot of admirers here at CAF. I confess I’ve never managed to read anything he wrote. I tried a few times, but never made it past the first ten or twenty pages. Fantasy is a genre that has never had any appeal for me.

I’m not sure about nonfiction books, but the longest novel I ever read is Vicor Hugo’s Les Miserables. My paperback edition, in two volumes, runs to 981 pages. The movie versions, including Bille August’s 1998 picture featuring Geoffrey Rush and Liam Neeson, are all adapted from just a few selected episodes in the novel.
 
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The longest tome I have ever read is the unabridged Journals of Lewis and Clark. 10 volumes, 4000 pages. Loved it, couldn’t put it down even though it took a couple years.
 
As of right now probably The Divine Comedy. If I can stick with it, it might soon be War and Peace.
 
ZMystiCat said:
The Lord of the Rings
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Read the trilogy on a road trip through the forests, mountains and valleys of British Columbia, imagining the characters travelling through the changing scenery.
BartholomewB said:
Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables
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Read the first part in high school. Recently read the complete book online. Then rented the musical starring Hugh Jackson. That was fun.
 
The Bible. I used the ESV and I’m currently reading through the KJV.
 
BartholomewB said:
Fantasy is a genre that has never had any appeal for me.
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I actually do like Tolkien’s world and characters. The problem for me is that they come alive long before he’s done describing them. Basically, he sucks you into a scene or backstory but then keeps going on and on and on until any emotional connection is drowned out. And I’m all for reading pages upon pages of lore. When telling a story, though, I feel it needs to be spread out more than Tolkien did, possibly cutting some of it to save for another book.
 
I don’t count the bible as the longest book, as it is a library of dozen’s of books.

So, I would say the longest book I have read was Margaret Mitchell’s, “Gone with the Wind”.
 
BoomerangToo said:
The longest tome I have ever read is the unabridged Journals of Lewis and Clark. 10 volumes, 4000 pages. Loved it, couldn’t put it down even though it took a couple years.
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That would have been very interesting reading 🙂
I can’t help adding an accent when l read,I’d be curious
how they spoke back then.Unabriged would make you feel as though you were venturing with them .
 
I’d love to be able to say the Bible but I have yet to complete it entirely. As for other books, hmm probably Needful Things by Stephen King at about 690 pages. I know, not exactly the best thing I could read but it was entertaining.
 
So, basically you want my entire reading list for Graduate studies in Theology. Gonna take a while. Let me get back to you…

Just kidding… I’m going to say either Romans: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary by Joseph A. Fitzmeyer, The Theology of Paul the Apostle by James D.G. Dunn, Vatican Council II: The Conciliar and Post Conciliar Documents Vol1 and 2, or The Christian Faith in the Doctrinal Documents of the Catholic Church, 7th Ed.
 
I don’t recall their grammar being much different from the modern, but their spelling was atrocious!
 
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