What are you reading in 2025?

[Ralif Redhammer]

But a long book doesnt need to justify its lenght?

I definitely prefer shorter works to longer. Not that I don't think the world of certain long-form works. But for me, a book really needs to work to justify its page count once it creeps over 300 pages. Plenty of books do, but I can't count the number of books that I think would've been better off shaving 50-100 pages, or divided into smaller books. Heck, I would posit that if A Song of Ice and Fire had been released as a longer series of 200-400 page books, GRRM wouldn't be stuck these past 14 years.

 

[Parmandur]

I definitely prefer shorter works to longer. Not that I don't think the world of certain long-form works. But for me, a book really needs to work to justify its page count once it creeps over 300 pages. Plenty of books do, but I can't count the number of books that I think would've been better off shaving 50-100 pages, or divided into smaller books. Heck, I would posit that if A Song of Ice and Fire had been released as a longer series of 200-400 page books, GRRM wouldn't be stuck these past 14 years.

I have literally never felt like I wanted any book to be shorter...? Whereas I am frequently left wanting more. Sometimes from the longer books!

 

[gnarlygninja]

I strongly preferred books that were long when I was younger, but this has been a huge shift over the past decade, and now a book needs to be very good for me to bother with it over a certain length. As a result fantasy, which was once my favorite genre, has largely been abandoned since the genre seems reluctant to move past the doorstopper which is always part of a series of equally long books. The realization hit me when I read Joe Abercrombie's Age of Madness earlier this year, which I hated so much it made me question my memory of his earlier work. The length was a big part of that, I frequently kept finding myself wondering why parts were even in the book and then realizing there were hundreds of pages left. I feel the same way about video games, some genres have a similar obsession with how many hours you can sink into them, and movies. I'm no stranger to the feeling of getting to the end of a book and being sad it's over, but I don't think I'd enjoy most books I felt that way toward if they had overstayed their welcome.