Bookshelf Breakers

So, there's the league table of who's read the most books off the list. But what really counts is how many pages you've read. If you've got my spreadsheet, you'll know that there are roughly 452,676 pages on all four editions combined. As most of you won't have the spreadsheet, you won't know how many of those you've read, but a good indication might be how many of the longest novels you've covered.

Below, I've listed the novels that are 1000 pages or more. There are 29. This month, I'll have read 15. How many have you?

Remembrance of Things Past (3400 pages)
A Dance to the Music of Time (2950)
The Water Margin (2150)
The Man Without Qualities (1800)
Jahrestage (1700)
Clarissa (1550)
Joseph and His Brothers (1500)
The Sea of Fertility (1450)
Moby-Dick (1450)
A Suitable Boy (1450)
Romance of the Three Kingdoms (1400)
War and Peace (1400)
Les Misérables (1350)
Your Face Tomorrow (1300)
Don Quixote (1300)
U.S.A. (1300)
The Count of Monte-Cristo (1250)
The Tale of Genji (1200)
The Lord of the Rings (1200)
2666 (1150)
Kristin Lavransdatter (1150)
Infinite Jest (1100)
Against the Day (1100)
Gargantua and Pantagruel (1050)
Cecilia (1050)
Gone With the Wind (1050)
The Kindly Ones (1000)
Camilla (1000)
The Last Chronicle of Barset (1000)

Love this idea for a discussion! I've read 9.

Moby-Dick
War and Peace
Les Miserables
Don Quixote
The Count of Monte-Cristo
The Lord of the Rings
Kristin Lavransdatter
Gone With the Wind
The Last Chronicle of Barset

I also have plans to read Cecilia over November/December of this year with a group read. Also, this list includes some of my favorite books and I think they were all 4 or 5 star reads for me. Worth the time!

I've got 4 - Remembrance of Things Past, Moby-Dick, Infinite Jest and Gone with the Wind.

I had gotten halfway through The Count of Monte Cristo a few years ago, and I was liking it a lot, but I got distracted and it was just too hard to pick up again in the middle so I'll have to start that one over.

3: Don Quixote, The Count of Monte Cristo and The Lord of the Rings.

The others are not in my immediate tbr list...

I almost never read long books, but from that list I have read Gone With the Wind. There are another one or two there that I might maybe read someday, but overall I have no desire to conquer that list.

I was surprised that Bleak House and Anna Karenina aren't on the list, but I guess my editions have over 1000 pages because they have so much extra material.

4:
Lord of the Rings
The Count of Monte Cristo
Gone With the Wind
USA = had to read this in honors English in high school. I'm not sure I remember much, (except that I didn't like it) but it's daunting to think about rereading it

Actually, I read all of these when I was in high school, forty years ago. I used to reread Lord of the Rings every year (maybe 20 times?) and also reread GWTW several times at that age.

I thought I'd start the first volume of Kristin Lavransdatter this month, since the three of them have been sitting there unread on Planet TBR since 2008.

The Sea of Fertility (1450)
A Suitable Boy (1450)
War and Peace (1400)
Les Misérables (1350)
The Count of Monte-Cristo (1250)
The Tale of Genji (1200)
The Lord of the Rings (1200)
Kristin Lavransdatter (1150)
Against the Day (1100)
Gone With the Wind (1050)

*Moby-Dick (1450) -- My owned edition is 625 pages
*Don Quixote (1300) -- My owned edition is 940 pages

Huh. More than I would have thought.

Out of curiosity, what edition/page count are you using for The Story of the Stone/The Dream of the Red Chamber? My 5-vol penguin set are 544, 601, 637, 398, and 383 pages respectively.

I've read 13 on this list the longest being A Dance to the Music of Time, Clarissa and Moby-Dick.

My spreadsheet (based on arukiyomi's) has a few other long books based on the number of pages I've read (or have on the TBR pile):

Pilgrimage by Dorothy Richardson - four volumes totalling 2109 pages
Monkey - Wu Ch'eng-en - the length varies with the various popular abridgements, but mine was 1389 pages and the purists have to tackle around 2500 pages!
1Q84 - Haruki Murakami - technically 3 books, but one volume of 1318 pages
Cryptonomicon - Neal Stephenson - 1168 pages in my version
La Regenta - Leopoldo Alas - 1018 pages

I've read Monkey and 1Q84 (a 1001 group read from a couple of years ago), and will shortly be setting off on Ms Richardson's stream-of-consciousness epic.

The number of pages for older books varies with the page size and typeface; I have two copies of Vanity Fair, one of which would slip comfortably in to a pocket and the other filling a sizeable portion of a book shelf.

In theory I've read 11 although I'm pretty certain (to be honest) that I never read every bit of the Proust. In fact, I'm not sure I ever read all of Moby Dick although I passed the exam on it in my senior year of high school! Clarissa I read for "fun" in high school and would not swear to my completion there either. Rabelais, read in graduate school -- probably quite a lot of it but not the same way I'd read a 1001-er now. My father read The Lord of the Rings to me when I was seven years old so while I did hear every word, I'm not sure it should really count.

But the other six I've definitely read and they are some of my favorite 1001-ers -- Dance to the Music of Time, War and Peace, Les Mis, Don Quixote, Kristen Lavransdatter, Last Chronicle (with its predecessors), all truly outstanding.

Oh, and adding 1Q84 brings me up to an even dozen and is one book that I definitely read all the way through without liking.

>8 puckers: Good point - 1Q84 definitely belongs up there (and the rest, it looks like, I just don't have any familiarity with them). And it adds another to my tally! :)

Great subject. I am not too fond of the bookshelf breakers and usually read other, thinner, books in between. I am glad and surprised that I have read nine of them:

1. A Dance to the Music of Time
2. The Sea of Fertility
3. A Suitable Boy
4. War and Peace
5. Les Miserables
6. Your Face Tomorrow
7. The Tale of Genji
8. 2666
9. Gone with the Wind
10.1Q84

The absolute breaker on my shelves however, is The Thousand and One Nights, which exists of four volumes. Don't we have to read them all? I just discover that Arukiyomi's app says it has only 450 pages, which would be a pleasant surprise.

I've only got three- A Suitable Boy, The Lord of the Rings, and Gone With the Wind. I've started and not finished Les Miserables, Don Quixote, and The Count of Monte Cristo.

Part of what deters me from reading these is it hurts my arms after awhile...

#12, I did three of my favorite shelf-breakers on audio: Les Miserables, Last Chronicle, and Don Quixote. All were excellent in that form and did not cause me physical pain either.

Oh dear... I have read two (Gone with the Wind & 1Q84). I have a lot of catching up to do!

One of the hardest things to put into the spreadsheet and apps was the word count for the books. There are so many editions, particularly for older books. The Thousand and One Nights is a good example and it should definitely be up there in the Bookshelf Breaker category whereas my Cryptonomicon came in at near 900 pages.

The numbers I came up with are a combination of some guy who had put in first edition page numbers for the first edition of the 1001 Books book years ago. For the 300+ books added to the list since then in more recent editions, I used various books sites (like LT) and rounded to the nearest 50. So, whereas some of my books may be way off, I find that on average, it's not a bad estimate at the reading challenge before us. I've got just over 200 days of reading time to do yet.

Best crack on...

Six for me:
Moby Dick
War and Peace
Les Miserables
The Count of Monte Cristo
The Lord of the Rings
Gone with the Wind

I listened to War and Peace and the others I read when I was young and not so daunted by big books. Also, TLOR was in 3 separate books so they didn't strain my wrists.

>15 arukiyomi: Yes, most of the time the app's page count gives a good estimation of what to expect. I would not dare to criticize it, I'm its biggest fan (perhaps even addict)!

>11 Simone2: I read the Penguin Classics edition of One Thousand and One Nights which is 2715 pages making it third on the list behind Proust and Powell. I understand that Taebaek Mountains is 10 volumes long so if that ever get translated it will be up there.

I have 5 under my belt

War and Peace (1400)
Les Misérables (1350)
The Count of Monte-Cristo (1250)
The Lord of the Rings (1200)
Gone With the Wind (1050)

and I know most of the others. And Im surprised Bleak House and Anna Karenina is not on this list also.

I've read 21 of the 29:

Remembrance of Things Past (3400 pages)
A Dance to the Music of Time (2950)
The Water Margin (2150)
The Man Without Qualities (1800)
Clarissa (1550)
The Sea of Fertility (1450)
Moby-Dick (1450)
A Suitable Boy (1450)
Romance of the Three Kingdoms (1400)
War and Peace (1400)
Les Misérables (1350)
Don Quixote (1300)
U.S.A. (1300)
The Count of Monte-Cristo (1250)
The Tale of Genji (1200)
The Lord of the Rings (1200)
2666 (1150)
Infinite Jest (1100)
Gargantua and Pantagruel (1050)
Gone With the Wind (1050)
The Last Chronicle of Barset (1000)

I also read these. The page counts are the editions I read:

A Dream of Red Mansions (2576 pages)
Journey to the West (or Monkey) (2346 pages)
Pilgrimage (2118 pages)
Amadis of Gaul (1438 pages)

The edition of Thousand and One Nights I read was in two volumes from Everyman's Library totaling 694 pages.