Welcome to Top Ten Tuesday, a weekly bookish meme hosted by Jana @ That Artsy Reader Girl that features a different bookish topic every week.
Today’s topic is Books with a High Page Count
I did a previous TTT topic with Chonky Books, but I’ve read a few more chonkers since then and thought I’d add them here. Not all of them are the most chonky books in the world, some are only about 600+ pages, and where there are series, I featured the first book in the series even though the later books are chonkier. I’ll state them in the descriptions though.
I’m a huge fan of chonkers because you get more time with the story and characters, and you get to live in that world a little longer. What chonkers have you read and loved?
Top Ten More Chonkers
- 11/22/63 by Stephen King – 849 pages. It’s like I can’t do a TTT without having at least one SK book on the list. But to be fair, it actually did come in at 10th place when I went through my most recent chonkers read (that wasn’t already featured or part of a series)! It’s time travel, historical fiction, and such an adventure!
- Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky – 671 pages. This one felt like a fever dream. I enjoyed the reading experience but I didn’t connect to the characters and I don’t think it’s one that will stay with me. There’s a lot of philosophizing and justification, which makes sense for the topic, but I couldn’t agree with the characters’ points.
- The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt – 771 pages. I loved this one. It had David Copperfield/Demon Copperhead vibes, and I love how immersive it is. It’s a coming-of-age story and we see the protagonist as a young child up to adulthood. His best friend is also one of the most interesting and exasperating characters I’ve read!
- Super Powereds by Drew Hayes – 814 pages. This one was such a pleasant surprise and it has become one of my favorite series! A group of super powered young adults going to a super powered school; it’s so smart and action-packed, and there’s also such a strong found family element to the story. How could I resist? There are four books and the first one is 814 pages, the next three are 822 pages, 1104 pages, and a whopping 1981 pages, respectively!
- The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson – 1007 pages. I’ve finished up to Book 3, and the next two books are on my immediate TBR. I’m enjoying it so far but I need to read them faster because I’m forgetting details the longer I’m taking to read them. Books 2 and 3 are 1088 pages and 1248 pages, respectively.
- The Terror by Dan Simmons – 835 pages. This one was so good! It has a slow start but the tension just kept building and building. It’s based on the real-life expedition that failed, but there are some fantastical elements in this story.
- Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky – 608 pages. I’ve read this and the second book with 597 pages. There is a third book but I haven’t read it yet. It’s about humans colonizing other planets, and somehow creating intelligent life in other species through some kind of nanovirus. It’s very interesting to see the evolution of these species throughout thousands and thousands of years, and I love how much more evolved they become than even humans!
- Perdido Street Station by China Mieville – 710 pages. This one lives in my mind rent-free. I love the world-building, the different alien species we see living together, and I love how the pursuit of science and art is presented here. It is also extremely gut-wrenching and devastating, and I’m still not over it.
- Les Miserables by Victor Hugo – 1463 pages. I loved the experience of reading this one as well, even the parts where the author goes on long tangents on things that are not necessarily directly related to the story! I don’t like the characters as people, but I think they are really interesting as characters and I love that they stayed true to the title of their story!
- Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy – 964 pages. This book has been on my TBR for ages and now that I’ve finally read it I can say that Tolstoy is a genius and I am enthralled by his writing! To be clear, I hate Anna Karenina as a character, and I got so tired of her by the time I was halfway through the story, and I also didn’t much like the other characters so there was nothing to keep me invested. But somehow, Tolstoy did! He is a master at character study and like them or not, the characters and their thought processes and behaviors kept me interested! I’m looking forward to reading Tolstoy’s War and Peace!
Have you read any of these books? What did you think of them? Would you read any of these books?
Wow! Les Mis is a lengthy one. A great addition to this topic for sure – and one I don’t see myself reading with that high page count. 😉
Lol, I get it! It was absolutely daunting for me too and spent so many years on my TBR before I finally bit the bullet!
I loved Goldfinch so much. Good list.
Ah, great book list. I’m familiar with The Goldfinch. I watched Karenina and Crime and Punishment as theater plays. The setting too fresh in my mind. But maybe because of that I should read them now. Thank you.
I didn’t know they were made into plays. That’s so interesting!
Yes, in Romania 🙂 My native country.
Goldfinch was amazing!
The only book on here I’ve read (at least some of) is Les Mis. I’m sure the copies we were given in high school were abridged, though still chunky!
Pam @ Read! Bake! Create!
https://readbakecreate.com/ten-biggest-books-on-my-tbr/
I’m sure I would’ve balked at having to read Les Mis for school! I enjoy reading it for leisure because I don’t have to study it or remember details, I’m horrible at remembering details about books!
I’ve always wanted to read Perdido Street Station, and I’m pretty sure I will read Crime and Punishment, if I live long enough.
Perdido Street Station was difficult to get into but so good once you do! I hope you enjoy it too. I’m also very interested in more of Mieville’s books now.
I think I might look out for the Brandon Sanderson books, it is finding the time to get through big books which is a little daunting when there are shorter books jostling in the wings!
https://rosieamber.wordpress.com/2025/08/19/%f0%9f%93%9atoptentuesday-10-books-with-a-high-page-count-tuesdaybookblog-booktwitter-booktwt/
That is so true! I enjoy reading shorter books most of the time, but I always feel like the big books are more value for money because often they cost the same or just slightly more than the shorter books, and I get more pages to read!
Les Miserables was a DNF for me. Maybe someday I’ll give it another try!
Totally! It took me several tries too!
Lol! I am the same. Stephen King has just got a book for everything, and I have read so much of his and loved it. 11/22/63 is on my list as well!
I love it! Another Constant Reader! ❤️
That’s a fantastic list! I also love a good “chonker.” I read **Children of Time** by Adrian Tchaikovsky, and it was the book that got me back into reading sci-fi after avoiding it for decades. I completely agree with your thoughts on how fascinating it is to see the evolution of the species. Thanks for sharing this list; it’s given me a few new books to add to my TBR pile!
That makes me so happy to hear! I hope you enjoy all the new books you read!
I had The Goldfinch and Way of Kings on my list today but both are still on my TBR (as well as quite a few of the others you’ve mentioned here)! I wish the chonkies weren’t so intimidating to read 🤭
I love that we have so many books in common! Some of them are intimidating for sure, but I’m also quite surprised by some chonkers that go by so quickly because they’re so easy to read. Those are my favorite!
I like the cover of Terror.
Here is our Top Ten Tuesday.
It definitely looks cool! Pun intended!😂
I didn’t realize how long Les Mis was! My TTT
Yeah, it’s huge! Probably because it goes off on tangents that don’t seem connected to the story at all!
One of these days I’ll try Les Mis. (Probably.) (Maybe.)
I’ve also read 11/22/63, but for me those 800+ pages were about 400 too many. There was so much extraneous stuff in there which I thought detracted from the main plot and dropped the tension levels enough that by the time we got to November 1963 I just didn’t care what happened anymore. Ah well. Books hit differently for everyone!
Awww, sorry it didn’t work out for you. It’s one of my favorite King books and I loved all of it, but I agree that books are different for everyone. I hope you’ll enjoy Les Mis if you read it!
Perdido Street Station is just so huge and weird, it’s pretty amazing.
Omg yes, it’s so weird but so good!
Wow, you have read quite a few with super high page counts! I used to read Stephen King, but I have not read that one. Have a great week!
Stephen King has so many amazing books! So many big ones too! Have a great week too!
11/22/63 is on my TBR, but I have to be in the right mood I believe.
My TTT: https://laurieisreading.com/2025/08/19/top-ten-tuesday-the-beasts/
Big books do require the right mood for sure! But I hope you enjoy it when you read it, it’s one of my favorites.
C&P also was a miss for me, but I did end up quite liking The Brothers Karamazov! It’s philosophical but more character-based. And I loooooved Anna Karenina!
Oh, that’s good to know! I mean to read The Brothers Karamazov eventually but probably not anytime soon!
The Goldfinch is one that I’ve been meaning to get to for so long- mostly because of the size! lol
It surprised me how much I liked it! I hope you do too when you read it.
ONLY 600? LOL. I consider anything over about 400 pages to be a chonker. I rarely read books that are longer than that because they usually seem unnecessarily long to me. As much as I enjoy sinking into a world and really getting to know it, I also need books to keep me engaged; otherwise, I’m out!
Happy TTT!
Susan
http://www.blogginboutbooks.com
That’s totally fair! I guess part of it for me is growing up with limited access to books; if I could only buy one book, I’d buy the thicker one over a thinner one so I’d have more to read!