WOULD YOU READ A ONE MILLION WORD BOOK?
“The death of the ‘attention span’ might have been declared prematurely,” she adds. “But at the same time, novels are competing with other entertainment forms that provide a lot of instant thrills. To start a long novel these days, I think the reader needs to feel certain that the tale will be worth the journey.”
25 BIG NOVELS THAT ARE WORTH YOUR TIME
Author Adrienne Morris 
4 responses to ““The death of the attention span may have been declared too early.””
Someone needs to tell agents. They keep asking for shorter and shorter books.
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What can be said in a few short pages? 😉
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There are a number of classics I’d like to read and many are very long. I’m not a fast reader, however, and that tends to get in the way. I don’t believe a long book is necessarily a great one, nor a short one necessarily slight. Kent Haruf’s books are lovely and only a bit longer than novellas. Ursula Hegi’s Stones from the River is just over 500 pages and one of my most favorite books ever. The words should be just enough to tell the story. Both of these writers did a great job.
What an interesting idea you’ve posed, Adrienne.
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I agree that a long book is only good if the story is good, but my mother raised us on the long classics from Dickens and Alcott so my appetite is for books like that.
But then I love Hemingway’s Nick Adams stories and plenty of young adult books that aren’t terribly long.
I guess the romantic in me wants friendships that last forever, and I’ve found some of my best friends in long books 🙂
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