www.blogs.creativeloafing.com: Against the Day, by Thomas Pynchon, is by all accounts a monster of a novel.  The first edition hit the shelves at 1085 pages.  The audio book version was 54 hours long.  Yes, someone seriously sat there in front of the microphone for well over 54 hours, just reading.

I love a book that keeps me enthralled for countless hours – one that I can spend days or weeks buried in. You’re caught up in the world, the characters, the story, and everything is so addicting that the last thing you want is for the book to end.

Still, not every biblical length novel is what you would call good.  There are many examples of novels that are so long simply because the author had, as someone once said about Stephen King, “diarrhea of the typewriter.”

Infinite Jest, by David Foster Wallace

In what would ultimately prove to be Wallace’s opus, Infinite Jest is a daunting work of art at 1104 pages.  Futuristic, postmodern, colossal and full of biting satire, Infinite Jest is at times the story of a piece of film that gives the book its title.

Under the Dome, by Stephen King

Just a hair shorter than the expanded edition of The Stand, Under the Dome will prove to be King’s longest single novel in quite some time at 1088 pages.  Based on a 450 page abandoned novel from the 1980’s, Under the Dome returns to King’s home turf, Maine.

Marienbad My Love, by Mark Leach

Perhaps more an example of King’s “diarrhea of the typewriter” than anything else, Marienbad My Love is available for free from Leach’s website. At 17 million words long, Leach claims his work contains both the world’s longest word (at 4.4 million letters) and the world’s longest sentence (3 million words).

More here.

www.io9.com: Emanuel Schongut has illustrated book covers for a ton of science fiction, fantasy, and crime classics. This small collection of his 1960s covers perfectly captures the weird, hallucinatory feel of SF from that era.

You can see more of his amazing, eye-melting work on his website.

More here.

54 hours long?! My goodness! I love a good, long book just as much as anyone else. But I will admit that I prefer to read books that are under 500 pages. I like reading several in a month. What is your favorite long book?