I do 9-hour shifts and I work by myself (I’m a cook). I took the habit of listening to audiobooks while working. I use Audible. So far I’ve “read” (listened, but is listening to an audiobook really reading? That’s another debate) One Hundred Years of Solitude, Crime and Punishment, 1984, 1Q84, The Little Prince, Heaven, The Idiot, Frankenstein, and The Goldfinch, all this while cooking my little meals 🥘.
Anyways, that’s not the subject, please tell me your favourite LONG book. I’m looking for my next listening! I prefer them to be long because my shifts are really long, so I like to really immerse myself in the book and not finish it in one shift, I like when it lasts. Bonus points if it’s on Audible, and double bonus points if it’s in French (I’m bilingual, but I prefer reading in French).
by OddSun5915
13 Comments
Gideon the Ninth was like 19 hours long.
Neal Stephenson has some loooong books.
The Stand by Stephen King.
“The Decline of the West” in one volume by Oswald Spengler
I just enjoyed the audiobook for Babel by RF Kuang. It was 20+ hours.
Several years ago Neal Stephenson switched from typing his books to writing them longhand in the hope that he would start getting to the point and not rambling so much.
The first result of this experiment is the Baroque Cycle, which was supposed to be a novel but is actually a trilogy, not only for marketing reasons but because trying to fit the whole thing in one volume would have exceeded the physical limits of bookbinding machinery.
I’m sorry, most of these are in English!
Wolf Hall, by Hilary Mantel! It’s the first book of a trilogy, and on it’s own it’s 24 hours. Bring Up The Bodies (Book 2) is 14, and The Mirror and the Light (3) is 12.
If you like fantasy at all, pick up the Song of Ice and Fire books by George R R Martin. They vary in length, but all five of the main series are at least 30 hours long.
East of Eden by John Steinbeck, another classic a little more along the lines of the books you’ve named, is 25 hours.
Dune by Frank Herbert has a French reading clocking in at about 18 hours.
War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy. It is truly epic in scale with unforgettable, poignant characters that will tear your heart out. You will never read another book like it.
Lonesome Dove is a great long one if you want to really sink into a world. Big page count but very readable once it gets moving.
La chartreuse de Parme, Vingt Mille Lieues Sous les Mers, Les Trois Mousquetaires. I get my audiobooks from the library, not Audible,but my local library has these in French, so I’d think Audible would have them too?
The Luminaries
Or, you could try a series like Discworld or the series starting with Wool
Shantaram
The Bright Sword
Lots of Robert Ludlum(Bourne identity)are long-ish…
When I was doing hour commutes I went through several (on cassette)
Les mis for French
Middlemarch, covenant of water, cutting for stone for English
Maybe butter by Asako Yuzuki if you want a tie in with work
Then broken earth trilogy by NK Jemisin if you want to get into fantasy then inheritance trilogy if you enjoyed that
Happy reading!