# Books you've stayed up late to finish reading
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-youve-stayed-up-late-to-finish-reading/506109
**Category:** Cafe Society
**Created:** [August 11, 2009, 9:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-youve-stayed-up-late-to-finish-reading/506109 "2009-08-11T21:14:01Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@MsWhatsit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MsWhatsit)
#### Post date: [August 11, 2009, 9:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-youve-stayed-up-late-to-finish-reading/506109/1 "2009-08-11T21:14:01Z")
There have been some books over the years that I simply can’t put down at night until I’m finished with them, even if that means I stay up way past my bedtime and wind up being a zombie at work or school the next day. It seems to happen less often these days than it did when I was younger, possibly because I read less fiction than I used to.
Embarrassingly enough, the most recent example for me is the Sookie Stackhouse “Southern Vampire” novels by Charlaine Harris. They are like popcorn for my brain, but it’s popcorn that _I can’t stop eating until it’s gone_.
Anyone else? I need some gripping reading material. So to speak.
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### Author:  [@Zsofia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zsofia)
#### Post date: [August 11, 2009, 9:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-youve-stayed-up-late-to-finish-reading/506109/2 "2009-08-11T21:22:32Z")
Humiliatingly, _Twilight_. Couldn’t put that piece of shit down. Just couldn’t help it.
Oddly, _Brideshead Revisited_, and _Gaudy Night_, neither of which are the kind of thing you think of as unputdownable - I was up till the wee hours with both, though.
ETA - and, uh, the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants books. Those are good, though, not crap.
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### Author:  [@Markxxx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Markxxx)
#### Post date: [August 11, 2009, 9:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-youve-stayed-up-late-to-finish-reading/506109/3 "2009-08-11T21:23:51Z")
J Robert Lennon’s, _Mailman_. I was up till 5:30am.
I didn’t quite follow the ending so either I was so tired or else, but the book was absoutely wonderful. Kind of a dark humour.
He has a similar book called _The Funnies_ about people behind a comic strip that superficially reminds the reader of the “Family Circus”
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### Author:  [@Kamino\_Neko](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kamino_Neko)
#### Post date: [August 11, 2009, 9:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-youve-stayed-up-late-to-finish-reading/506109/4 "2009-08-11T21:25:06Z")
Various books I’ve done it with:
The Forever War (Joe Haldeman)\*, Starship Troopers (Robert Heinlein), The Stand (Stephen King), Pretty much every one of the Myth Adventures books (Robert Asprin), Green Lantern: The Hero’s Quest (Dennis O’Neil), Superman: The Never Ending Battle (Roger Stern) (both text novels). Each of them had multiple ‘just one more chapter’ nights in the first reading, which usually ended up pushing my bedtime back 2 or 3 hours.
But the absolute KING of it…
The Time Machine (H G Wells). Picked it up in the evening, didn’t put it down until it was finished.
Granted, it’s a short book (the edition I was reading was about 120 pages), but still…
- Sidenote, if anyone’s read the sequels are they worth the effort of checking out?
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### Author:  [@StGermain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/StGermain)
#### Post date: [August 11, 2009, 9:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-youve-stayed-up-late-to-finish-reading/506109/5 "2009-08-11T21:35:20Z")
_Salem’s Lot_. I was so scared I had to finish it so I could sleep.
StG
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### Author:  [@Freudian\_Slit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freudian_Slit)
#### Post date: [August 11, 2009, 9:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-youve-stayed-up-late-to-finish-reading/506109/6 "2009-08-11T21:43:31Z")
Rebecca by Daphne DuMaurier. I remember getting to the “twist” part and having to stay up to finish it. So good!
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### Author:  [@BMalion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BMalion)
#### Post date: [August 11, 2009, 9:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-youve-stayed-up-late-to-finish-reading/506109/7 "2009-08-11T21:47:52Z")
Embarrassingly, _Battlefield Earth_, it seemed like the right thing to do at the time.
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### Author:  [@LawMonkey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LawMonkey)
#### Post date: [August 11, 2009, 9:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-youve-stayed-up-late-to-finish-reading/506109/8 "2009-08-11T21:55:31Z")
_Watership Down_. Disclaimer: This is probably my favorite book of all time, so there may be some bias.
Other than that, the most recent one I can clearly remember would be _Triplanetary_. My “bedtime” at the time was 4 am or so–I stayed up until 5:30 or 6 reading it.
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### Author:  [@JuliaSqueezer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JuliaSqueezer)
#### Post date: [August 11, 2009, 9:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-youve-stayed-up-late-to-finish-reading/506109/9 "2009-08-11T21:56:04Z")
Probably _Lonesome Dove_.
Loved that book.
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### Author:  [@Claire\_Beauchamp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Claire_Beauchamp)
#### Post date: [August 11, 2009, 10:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-youve-stayed-up-late-to-finish-reading/506109/10 "2009-08-11T22:01:27Z")
_Lord of the Flies_. It was an assigned book in 9th grade English. Started reading it between classes the day we got it, finished it before I went to sleep that night. It scared the _bejeesus_ out of me.
There are lots of books where I stay up way too late reading, but I can’t remember any I read all in one go like that. One I remember reading every waking minute was a now-obscure tome called _The HAB Theory_. It was the rage amongst my circle in high school and it warped my view of the world a little. LOL
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### Author:  [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)
#### Post date: [August 11, 2009, 10:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-youve-stayed-up-late-to-finish-reading/506109/11 "2009-08-11T22:21:10Z")
Terry Pratchett and Lois Bujold are the worst for me. If I get a new book by either of them, I’ve learned not to start reading it until Friday evening, otherwise I’m going to be useless at work the next day.
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### Author:  [@Lobsang](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobsang)
#### Post date: [August 11, 2009, 10:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-youve-stayed-up-late-to-finish-reading/506109/12 "2009-08-11T22:48:17Z")
Replay. I think I carried on reading that through the night and to the next day.
And Discworld usually has that effect on me.
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### Author:  [@IvoryTowerDenizen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/IvoryTowerDenizen)
#### Post date: [August 11, 2009, 10:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-youve-stayed-up-late-to-finish-reading/506109/13 "2009-08-11T22:50:54Z")
_Salem’s Lot_ by Stephen King.
I started it at bedtime (idiot) and read through the night, finishing as teh sun came up. Engrossed and scared!
\*
Angela’s Ashes\*. I started it in the car on a trip from my parents-in-law’s place and holed up in the bathroom in our motel room with the light all night on bawling my eyes out.
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### Author:  [@Knorf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Knorf)
#### Post date: [August 11, 2009, 11:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-youve-stayed-up-late-to-finish-reading/506109/14 "2009-08-11T23:34:23Z")
_The Lord of the Rings_ – many times.
But I do this all the time, as long as my life lets me, so I’m probably not the best example.
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### Author:  [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)
#### Post date: [August 11, 2009, 11:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-youve-stayed-up-late-to-finish-reading/506109/15 "2009-08-11T23:46:39Z")
> [@Knorf](#):
>
> _The Lord of the Rings_ – many times.
As a kid I tried making it through LotR many times, and never could get out of the shire. Finally in 8th grade I made it out of the Shire, and the books picked right the hell up.
I stayed up one night reading _The Two Towers_. It was pushing midnight, but I was almost done with it.
And then it ended. If you’ve read it (not seen the movie), you know where it ended.
Dammit! I couldn’t leave it there! So I picked up _Return of the King_, figuring I’d read just the first chapter till I found out what had happened.
Turns out you don’t find out what happened until the second half of the book. By then it was nearly five in the morning.
I wasn’t much good the next day.
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### Author:  [@Zsofia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zsofia)
#### Post date: [August 12, 2009, 2:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-youve-stayed-up-late-to-finish-reading/506109/16 "2009-08-12T02:13:04Z")
> [@Freudian\_Slit](#):
>
> Rebecca by Daphne DuMaurier. I remember getting to the “twist” part and having to stay up to finish it. So good!
Oh, I forgot that one! Yeah, I think it was probably 4 AM for me when they were on their way to London and there was no way in hell I was putting that down.
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### Author:  [@Argent\_Towers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Argent_Towers)
#### Post date: [August 12, 2009, 3:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-youve-stayed-up-late-to-finish-reading/506109/17 "2009-08-12T03:03:14Z")
_Hogg_ by Samuel Delany. I read it all in one shot, beginning at around 3 PM out by the pool and continuing all the way up until about 5 or 6 AM. I had to find out what the last word of the novel was (since it said on the back cover, and on reviews I read elsewhere, that the protagonist and narrator only says one word in the whole book, the last word of the narrative.)
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### Author:  [@TNWPsycho](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TNWPsycho)
#### Post date: [August 12, 2009, 3:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-youve-stayed-up-late-to-finish-reading/506109/18 "2009-08-12T03:07:31Z")
Its a short one, but, “Jonathon Livingston Seagull” by Robert Bach…i think thats the only book i read straight through with no breaks.
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### Author:  [@Lok](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lok)
#### Post date: [August 12, 2009, 3:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-youve-stayed-up-late-to-finish-reading/506109/19 "2009-08-12T03:32:37Z")
Let me see, Sunday night, well, Monday morning rather, I finished _Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets_ at 4:30 AM. I finished _Prisoner of Azkaban_ at 7:30 AM Tuesday morning. I have put off starting Goblet of Fire for a couple of days, since I really want to get up in the morning rather then going to bed the. 😛 Besides, I don’t own a copy of _Order of the Phoenix_ and can’t find my library card. ☹
And I will probably not be going to bed soon anyway, I received my copy of _Absolute DC: The New Frontier_ today unexpectedly (I didn’t remember ordering it.) and I am going to have to read the entire thing soon.
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### Author:  [@movingfinger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/movingfinger)
#### Post date: [August 12, 2009, 3:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-youve-stayed-up-late-to-finish-reading/506109/20 "2009-08-12T03:43:04Z")
I just finished \*\*The Sex Lives of Cannibals \*\*by Maarten Troost around 1:30 last night, and I enjoyed it. His next book is **Getting Stoned With Savages**.
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