What are you reading in 2025?

[Parmandur]

That sounds like a Howard Waldrop story to go with his “Heart of Whitenesse”, which is about Christopher Marlowe as if he were Philip Marlowe.


Oh yes. I love that kind of book.


There’s now Ingsthering, an omnibus of all the People stories.

I was halfway through reading the summary before I realized what deranged nonsense it was, so for q hot second I thought the author was a 20th century Hellebic neo-pagan, but I got suspicious about the pronouns flipping back and forth between him and her, and then the Roman politics references sealed it.

 

[Retros_x]

For me, length is a virtue and brevity somewhat of a vice

I cannot imagine such a life. You must be blessed to never be confronted with persons - writers or not - who are babbling on and on without getting to a point.

A short book has to be very good to justify it's shortness for me

But a long book doesnt need to justify its lenght? Could I write a 3000 page Twilight fan fiction and you would love it?

This is similar to why I stopped counting how many books I read in a year.

Agreed, its a non-sensical statistic. In general I think its more healthy for your reading habit to not try to push your numbers as you're a salesman of your intellect.

The Emperor's Soul by Sanderson is the one of the best short stories ever

I think it counts already as a novella, but yeah its currently the best rated work by him in my good reads. Its the only work by him where I never encountered his annoying repetitions and endless monologues.

But in general, I do not have much time for pleasure reading right now so I prefer to read large books as a rule, I don't have the time to read shorts.

"I don't have time to read short books, so I read large books" is paradoxical. I am in the same situation like you, my time is limited and that is exactly the reasons books with a higher page count need to be worth it at all cost. When I was in school or university I didn't mind long books, but now a large book really need to be worth its long reading time or I'll be mad.

When I read a shorter book (up to 6-8 hours reading time) and its just fine, thats ok. When I finish a tome like A Way of Kings which costs me 15 hours of my life if I recall correctly I am more annoyed when it was just fine.

 

[Parmandur]

I cannot imagine such a life. You must be blessed to never be confronted with persons - writers or not - who are babbling on and on without getting to a point.

Journey before destination, I don't read to get to a singular "point".

But a long book doesnt need to justify its lenght?

Nope, because length is a plus.

Could I write a 3000 page Twilight fan fiction and you would love it?

I would be more interested in a 3000 page fanfiction than a 3 page one, yes, suggests that you had aomething to say. But vampire romance isn’t my jam.

"I don't have time to read short books, so I read large books" is paradoxical. I am in the same situation like you, my time is limited and that is exactly the reasons books with a higher page count need to be worth it at all cost. When I was in school or university I didn't mind long books, but now a large book really need to be worth its long reading time or I'll be mad.

No more paradoxical than preferring to listen to a symphony over pop songs. Pop songs cam be great, but they cannot engender the experience of Beethoven's 9th or Dvorak's 6th.

 

[Thomas Shey]

There’s now Ingsthering, an omnibus of all the People stories.

That helps, but she did have non-People stories like "Something Bright". I need to really see if there's a digital edition of The Anything Box.

 

[jian]

Minor case in point - just read Alchemised by SenLinYu, which is a pretty solid entry at 1030 pages. And while it is lovingly written with some care, it very much betrays its roots as a massive online fanfiction saga (it started as Manacled, a Harry Potter Draco/Hermione story). It has no interest in brevity and luxuriates in repetitive grimdark romantasy. I’d have much preferred it as a novel if the author had kept it to about 300 pages; I don’t think the characterisation or plot would have suffered.

 

[Kaodi]

A couple of weeks ago I was having a chat with a neighbour from my floor about reading before bed and I mentioned that I had a copy of Dracula and I had never read it and that it was the appropriate season for reading. I read the first chapter that night and thought maybe I would try and finish it before Hallowe'en. It is now November and I have not gotten back to it yet. But I probably should try to finish it before December at least.

 

[Parmandur]

Minor case in point - just read Alchemised by SenLinYu, which is a pretty solid entry at 1030 pages. And while it is lovingly written with some care, it very much betrays its roots as a massive online fanfiction saga (it started as Manacled, a Harry Potter Draco/Hermione story). It has no interest in brevity and luxuriates in repetitive grimdark romantasy. I’d have much preferred it as a novel if the author had kept it to about 300 pages; I don’t think the characterisation or plot would have suffered.

Interesting, I also have no interest in brevity.

 

[jian]

Interesting, I also have no interest in brevity.

The whole discussion about book length - my personal stance is that it depends on the book, if it can hold my attention for 1000 pages that's great, but honestly that's rare and I do love a compact intense read - makes me think about what people say about modern attention spans. As in, we're all supposed to have tiny attention spans, but at the same time we can all scroll our phones for hours and this is a great era for 4-hour podcasts about alligators or whatever.

We probably read more than ever, because it's so accessible, there's so much content, and it's still the most efficient way of getting content into our brains (YMMV - I just get more out of reading per hour, even graphic novels/manga/manhua/etc, than I do out of video, audio, or games). Obviously, this depends on whether you're dyslexic or have other neurodiversity or sensory issues that affect how you consume media.

 

[Clint_L]

I love me some short novels, and I love me some long novels.

The Great Gatsby is near perfect, and it weighs in at under 200 pages. Frankenstein is one of the most impactful novels ever written, and it is similarly short. But Lord of the Rings is impossible at that length (though props to Ralph Bakshi for condensing it about as much as possible).

I can't say that I have a discernible taste. My two favourite 2025 novels thus far are James, which is short, and The Devils, which is long. Either it grabs me or it doesn't. I will say that I am more likely to persevere with a shorter novel, even if it isn't great.

 

[overgeeked]

The whole discussion about book length - my personal stance is that it depends on the book, if it can hold my attention for 1000 pages that's great, but honestly that's rare and I do love a compact intense read - makes me think about what people say about modern attention spans. As in, we're all supposed to have tiny attention spans, but at the same time we can all scroll our phones for hours and this is a great era for 4-hour podcasts about alligators or whatever.

A note for the length discussion. A Game of Thrones is 720 pages long. The unabridged audio book is 33 hours 46 minutes. A 4-hour podcast is equivalent to a short story. All the scrolling is equivalent to thousands of micro stories. They’re not equivalent to one big book.

We probably read more than ever, because it's so accessible, there's so much content, and it's still the most efficient way of getting content into our brains (YMMV - I just get more out of reading per hour, even graphic novels/manga/manhua/etc, than I do out of video, audio, or games). Obviously, this depends on whether you're dyslexic or have other neurodiversity or sensory issues that affect how you consume media.

Or whether you simply prefer one type of media over another. You don’t have to be neurodivergent to prefer video to books, for example.