The Reading Room
Long Novels Worth a Winter: How to Tell a Big Book Will Pay Off
The first real cold snap on the Front Range changes what people want to read. In September a short novel feels right. By the time there's frost on the windshield in Castle Rock, a lot of readers want something they can live inside for a few weeks. That's a good instinct and a risky one. A long novel that doesn't pay off costs you a month, not a weekend.
So before anyone hauls a doorstop home from the library, here's how we tell whether a big book will earn its length, and three that we think earn every evening you give them.
What separates a big book that pays off from one that drags
Length on its own tells you almost nothing. Some very long books move faster than a thin literary novel where nobody leaves the kitchen. The long novels worth reading share a few habits, though, and you can usually spot them in the first few chapters.
| What to look at | Signals it will pay off | Signals it will drag |
|---|---|---|
| The opening chapters | Someone wants something by the end of your first sitting, even if it's small | Pages of setup before anyone wants anything |
| The cast | Lots of characters, each wanting something different | Lots of characters who exist to explain the setting |
| Why it's long | The story covers real ground: years, a whole town, a long road | The same scene keeps happening with new furniture |
| The sentences | Lines you'd read aloud to someone in the room | Description you're already skimming in chapter one |
| The edition | Unabridged, with the translator or editor clearly named | No word on what's been cut or who translated it |
| Its reputation | People still argue about the characters | People mostly mention that they finished it |
One drag signal isn't fatal. Two in the opening chapters usually is. If you're borrowing, Douglas County Libraries and the Denver Public Library both list holdings and editions in their catalogs, so you can compare translations and formats before you commit to carrying one home.
Three long novels that earn a winter
These are books we'd hand a busy adult in late October without hedging. All three are long. None of them read long once they get going, which is the whole point.
Lonesome Dove, by Larry McMurtry
Two retired Texas Rangers, running a shabby cattle and livery outfit in a dusty town near the Mexican border, decide to drive a herd north to Montana. That's the premise, and it's about all you need going in.
Calling it a Western is accurate and leaves out most of the book. It's funny, much funnier than its reputation suggests, and then it isn't. The pull is the people, Gus McCrae and Woodrow Call above all, who bicker like a long-married couple and never quite say what they mean to each other. It's for readers who think they don't like Westerns, and for anyone who wants to be wrecked by February.
Middlemarch, by George Eliot
Dorothea Brooke, a young woman with large ideals and very few outlets for them, makes a choice early in the book that most of the people around her can see is a mistake. At the same time a young doctor, Lydgate, arrives in the same provincial English town with ambitions of his own. Eliot follows them and several other households, and the real subject is how money, gossip, marriage and plain bad timing bend what people meant to do with their lives.
It is very long and very Victorian, and the narrator stops regularly to comment on everyone. Some readers love those asides and underline half of them. Some skim. Either way, it's the best of the three for a book club, because by the end everyone is defending a different character. Pick an edition with readable type and notes, and give it the first two of its named books before you decide.
The Count of Monte Cristo, by Alexandre Dumas
Edmond Dantès, a young sailor about to be made captain and married, is betrayed by people he trusts and thrown into prison without a trial. What follows is one of the great revenge stories, and it moves. Chapters tend to end on a hook, and the plot keeps turning. If you've ever torn through a thriller in three nights and wished it lasted longer, this is the book.
The thing to watch is the edition. Abridged versions are common and don't always say so loudly. Check that the cover says unabridged, and look at the publisher's page to see who translated it, because translations vary a lot in how easily they read.
Commit to a doorstop only when the month can hold it
The honest problem with long novels usually isn't the book. It's November and December.
Here's how we'd sort the three, depending on the reader and the month you've actually got.
If this, then that
- If you've quit a long book halfway before, then start with The Count of Monte Cristo, which is built to pull you forward.
- If you want something to argue about with a group, then pick Middlemarch.
- If you want to be moved and you're sure Westerns aren't for you, then try Lonesome Dove anyway.
- If you can only give it fifteen minutes a night until the new year, then choose a shorter book this season and come back to these.
The verdict
Read all three eventually. Read one this winter, chosen by how much time you really have, not how much you wish you had.
If you'd like a person to make the call, our reading consultations, curated reading lists and hosted book clubs are built for exactly this kind of choice, with clubs around Douglas County and the Denver metro and consultations by email from anywhere. Every recommendation comes from someone who read the whole book cover to cover, and you can read how we make a verdict and the principles behind it before you send anything.
Start a reading request with the last three books you finished and one you quit, and we'll tell you whether this is your winter for a long one.
