# What's the Longest It's Taken You to Finish a Book? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [January 15, 2007, 3:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-longest-its-taken-you-to-finish-a-book/388072 "2007-01-15T15:27:50Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![minlokwat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/minlokwat/32/2844_2.png) [@minlokwat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/minlokwat)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2007, 3:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-longest-its-taken-you-to-finish-a-book/388072/1 "2007-01-15T15:27:50Z")
That is to say, one complete reading -interruptions o.k.- but without starting over from the beginning? I don’t think it will take much to top this but I’ve been working on America’s Game, a book about the history of the NFL since early December (2006). I’ve been picking up and picking at it for some time. Sometimes it accompanies me to the bathroom, other times it’s with me during commercial breaks and sometimes I’ll just sit with it for a longer, uninterrupted spell. It’s not that great -obviously- and now I just want to be done with it. The kicker is I still have more than a hundred pages to go. I figure at this rate, I should finish before the end of the month. I want to start on 1812 but can’t until I finish this one since I’m not the type who likes to read two books simultaneously. Next? ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2007, 3:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-longest-its-taken-you-to-finish-a-book/388072/2 "2007-01-15T15:37:39Z")
When I was a kid, it took me a year to finish D. Bergamini’s **Japan’s Imperial Conspiracy**. When I was in grad school I statrted reading Langland’s **Piers Plowman** , couldn’t get into it, then picked it up again several years later and finished it. Does that count? ---
**Author:** ![Asgardking](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/779978/32.png) [@Asgardking](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Asgardking)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2007, 3:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-longest-its-taken-you-to-finish-a-book/388072/3 "2007-01-15T15:44:02Z")
Octavia Butler’s **Parable of the Talents**. I got too emotionally involved in the characters. When they were attacked, it hurt me so much I couldn’t keep reading. Picked it up a couple months later and finished it. ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2007, 3:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-longest-its-taken-you-to-finish-a-book/388072/4 "2007-01-15T15:59:12Z")
There are two actually. _Annals of the World_ and _Urantia_. I still haven’t finished either one. ---
**Author:** ![saoirse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/5daacb/32.png) [@saoirse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/saoirse)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2007, 4:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-longest-its-taken-you-to-finish-a-book/388072/5 "2007-01-15T16:52:01Z")
Every year, starting at the age of six, I read part of _Moby Dick_, and then abandoned it. I finished it when I was 21. The Newsweek subscription form I was using as a bookmark said something like $7.50 for a year’s subscription. I originally picked it up because the cover made it look exciting. After awhile it became a New Year’s thing. I’d determine to finish it every January, and get bored quickly. ---
**Author:** ![jacquilynne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/67e7ee/32.png) [@jacquilynne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jacquilynne)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2007, 4:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-longest-its-taken-you-to-finish-a-book/388072/6 "2007-01-15T16:56:22Z")
I’ve been reading Infinite Jest for about 4 years now. Considering I’m less than 200 pages into the book, I figure to be finished around 2032. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Chao\_Goes\_Mu](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_chao_goes_mu/32/3191_2.png) [@The\_Chao\_Goes\_Mu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Chao_Goes_Mu)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2007, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-longest-its-taken-you-to-finish-a-book/388072/7 "2007-01-15T17:39:57Z")
The clock is still rolling on me trying to get through **Foucault’s Pendulum**. I first picked it up in 1998. I read a few pages then z_zzzzzzzz._ ---
**Author:** ![jacquilynne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/67e7ee/32.png) [@jacquilynne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jacquilynne)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2007, 5:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-longest-its-taken-you-to-finish-a-book/388072/8 "2007-01-15T17:44:14Z")
Heh. Foucault’s Pendulum is my other long in the middle of it book. I keep it in the bathroom so I don’t have to feel guilty about only reading it a page at a time. I’m on page 100 of 641 in it. I imagine I’ll finish it a little sooner than Infinite Jest. ---
**Author:** ![BobT](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/8e8cbc/32.png) [@BobT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobT)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2007, 5:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-longest-its-taken-you-to-finish-a-book/388072/9 "2007-01-15T17:45:21Z")
I read the first half of “Don Quixote” while on vacation in Spain in 1995. Don’t tell me how it ends! ---
**Author:** ![eleanorigby](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ee7513/32.png) [@eleanorigby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eleanorigby)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2007, 5:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-longest-its-taken-you-to-finish-a-book/388072/10 "2007-01-15T17:45:53Z")
I tend to not finish books that do not interest me, so I cannot recall any titles offhand. Perhaps the reason you haven’t finished should be included, as some already have? That adds to the discusssion. Just a thought. ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2007, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-longest-its-taken-you-to-finish-a-book/388072/11 "2007-01-15T17:54:42Z")
I haven’t finished \*Urantia \* because the instructions given to me along with the book were, “Read this only as you feel called to do so.” I haven’t felt called very often. I haven’t finished \*Annals \* because it is like reading \*Numbers \* or _Exodus_. My Melancholia can only take so much a day or week of this kind of stuff: one tiny detail tied to some other tiny detail through a web of relationships. I’m still stuck trying to figure out how Ussher calculated the age of the world. It’s unbelievably tedious. ---
**Author:** ![Harriet\_the\_Spry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e56c9b/32.png) [@Harriet\_the\_Spry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Harriet_the_Spry)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2007, 6:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-longest-its-taken-you-to-finish-a-book/388072/12 "2007-01-15T18:12:45Z")
My entire senior year of high school I worked my way through Michener’s _The Source_. I enjoyed the book and never gave up, but it wasn’t a gripping page turner and I had a lot of other reading to do for school. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2007, 6:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-longest-its-taken-you-to-finish-a-book/388072/13 "2007-01-15T18:50:49Z")
As I’ve mentioned elsewhere, it took me most of my summer vacation ( I was a kid at the time, and had trouble with the vocabulary ) to finish my second science fiction book, _Creatures of Light and Darkness_, by Roger Zelazny. I also forgot the start, because it took so long, and was _completely_ confused by the plot. An excellent book, but a little too much for me at that age, even though I enjoyed it anyway. ---
**Author:** ![Beadalin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/3be4f8/32.png) [@Beadalin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beadalin)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2007, 7:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-longest-its-taken-you-to-finish-a-book/388072/14 "2007-01-15T19:07:17Z")
It took me, by my standards FOREVER to get through Neal Stephenson’s _Quicksilver_ (first of three books). I usually love Stephenson’s books and this should have been right up my ally, but good God. I’d slog through a small section, slide into catatonia, emerge and slog through some more. I eventually set it aside, read a few other books, came back to it and had to more or less start over to figure out what in the hell was going on… it was work, I tell you. All in all, more than a year. I found the other two much more enjoyable, probably because actual plot and character development emerged, and there were fewer mathematical diagrams. ---
**Author:** ![No\_Power\_In\_The\_Verse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/f9ae1b/32.png) [@No\_Power\_In\_The\_Verse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/No_Power_In_The_Verse)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2007, 7:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-longest-its-taken-you-to-finish-a-book/388072/15 "2007-01-15T19:37:52Z")
It took me close to two years of multiple attempts to get through an unabridged copy of _The Count of Monte Cristo_. It was a very old copy of pages in the thousands as I recall, in the end I loved it but at times I wished I had gone for the abridged version. ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2007, 8:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-longest-its-taken-you-to-finish-a-book/388072/16 "2007-01-15T20:03:51Z")
On a related tangent, has anyone ever read the _entire_ John Galt speech? ---
**Author:** ![The\_Big\_Cheese](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8baadc/32.png) [@The\_Big\_Cheese](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Big_Cheese)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2007, 8:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-longest-its-taken-you-to-finish-a-book/388072/17 "2007-01-15T20:35:04Z")
I have been reading a bio on Van Morrison for 2 1/2 months now. I’m 300 pages into it. I checked out it out the library at first, then had to renew it. Then I had to return it because you can only renew it once. So I marked the page, and check it out a couple days later. I still have maybe 150 pages to go…they’re only on 1978. Reminds me of one of his long, rambling songs. ---
**Author:** ![thelurkinghorror](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7c8e57/32.png) [@thelurkinghorror](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thelurkinghorror)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2007, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-longest-its-taken-you-to-finish-a-book/388072/18 "2007-01-15T20:41:44Z")
Gravity’s Rainbow. I finished in September or October, and probably started late 2005. It was tough going at times; I could get in the swing of things and read large sections at once, and then spend the next day staring at one page and rereading paragraphs. ---
**Author:** ![Cisco](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ccd318/32.png) [@Cisco](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cisco)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2007, 8:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-longest-its-taken-you-to-finish-a-book/388072/19 "2007-01-15T20:54:09Z")
I start a lot of books and quit for no particular reason. Usually it’s not because I don’t like the book, but that another one catches my attention and I get distracted. I started _Catch-22_ about 6 years ago and loved it, but stopped reading for some reason. I just checked last night, as a matter of coincidence, and I’m on page 63 (out of ~500.) I started _Don Quixote_ and _Huckleberry Finn_ both in elementary school (~20 years ago) and finished Huck Finn last week. I’m still working on Quixote. I started _A Brief History of Time_ in the mid-1990s and still haven’t finished it, but that one has a very specific reason: I’m terrible with math. ---
**Author:** ![ouryL](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ouryl/32/6067_2.png) [@ouryL](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ouryL)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2007, 9:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-longest-its-taken-you-to-finish-a-book/388072/20 "2007-01-15T21:21:35Z")
Bleak House It’s taking so long that I reckon it’s gonna be buried with me. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-longest-its-taken-you-to-finish-a-book/388072.md?page=2)