How Many Pages Are In War And Peace?

It’s also really interesting to see which characters they chose to focus on more than others. For example, poor Sonya doesn’t really get as much attention to her quiet suffering as the other characters do. And then there’s Dolokhov, who in the book is a more complex and even disturbing character than the simple villain they made him out to be on screen. But I think they did a perfect job casting Hélène. She embodies the amoral, glamorous society belle that Tolstoy created so well. Of course, as an adaptation, this TV version focuses most on the protagonists, so it’s not a perfect mirror of the book. But it is a completely coherent and compelling dramatic version in its own right, and a really great piece of television.

Cervantes needs a companion – not a book, but a guide. It would be really useful to have a few pages summarizing the historical context of the book or an analysis of the individual chapters. As it stands, the page count could be mitigated by reading the book as if you were learning about the Spanish Golden Age. The humor in novels and romantic stories that Cervantes parodies would be so much greater if you had an understanding of them. So read Cervantes as a project, not just as a book. The pages become steps in your deeper education.

My edition of the novel was 671 pages long, and I read it in 14 days, averaging 48 pages per day. I didn’t force myself to read a certain amount each day, but instead tried to read at about the same time every day. By doing so, I was able to sustain the mood of the novel, and maintain the necessary tension. Reading a long classic such as this can be daunting, but by setting a daily goal of, say, 30-50 pages, it becomes a pleasant daily ritual, rather than a chore. I read for about 30 minutes before bed each night, completing a chapter or two before drifting off to sleep. During the night, I would have strange and philosophical dreams. The novel would seep into my subconscious if I gave it consistent attention, and I found that the daily commitment to reading was enjoyable, rather than arduous.

Remember you said to not overlook any long books? I am going to recommend ‘Clarissa’ by Samuel Richardson. ‘Clarissa’ is an 18th-century epistolary novel and is one of the longest novels in the English language. The repetition in the letters from the protagonist, Clarissa, is often detailed and increasingly desperate as her situation worsens. I felt as though I was trapped in her perspective as her situation continued to deteriorate and the number of pages seemed to be getting greater and greater as she was placed under greater and greater pressure. It was not an easy or even particularly good read, but as a foundational text for the novel it was a psychological deep, complex, exploration of human emotions that required a lot of patience. It is definitely of historical interest for those studying literature, particularly the novel, as it demonstrates the creative use of form and the exploration of the human psyche that early novelists used. But it is a real challenge for other readers and offers a very unique and unconventional glimpse into the past of uncommon length and emotional depth. It is a very long book in terms of page count as well as emotional endurance.

I get to count front matter and back matter, right? So that means the copyright page and the dedication and the table of contents and the author's note and the preview of the next book all count as well. That's another 20 pages or so of non-story. An ebook lists all locations of a book, so a book of 350 locations is 350 'pages' of story. But in reality, that only translates to 320 pages of actual written story, not 350. This is one of my bugaboos when judging a book by its length. I have to flip to the start of Chapter 1 and the end of the book's last Chapter to get a true story length. Some publishers are better than others at counting up the actual number of story pages in a book of a given page length. For example, a 380-page hardcover might only contain 350 pages of written story. It's a small difference, but one that matters to the truly page-count-conscious.

A book that benefits from marginalia. I felt like I had the most wonderful time reading this book. I underlined so much, put in so many question marks and exclamation marks, and felt that I was almost arguing with Raskolnikov on the margins of the pages. Noting down all the symbolic moments and tracking the weather and how it affected the mood of the characters was all so very worthwhile. And I felt that the length of the book was made so very meaningful by my having been an active reader, as opposed to having simply read the book. All in all, therefore, my having read this book was not simply a matter of my having logged so many hours, for in fact the time spent reading, and then thinking about and annotating what I had just read, was more than worth while. In short, I felt that I had been able to establish a most wonderful relationship with a very complex book. And if one approaches a classic such as this with the same mindset, then soon one will realize that the number of pages does not even begin to matter. For what matters is not the mere counting down of the number of pages left to read, but rather the wonderful and most superb process of understanding the book that one is reading.

The book is a physical thing, part of its aura. The 720 or so pages of the paperback edition weigh heavily in your hands. The themes of the book are reflected in its physical form. I read the book as a paperback, the spine eventually cracking completely, the covers becoming flexible and worn from their many travels. The book became a object in my life for a few weeks, something that I would pull down from my shelf and begin reading once more. As opposed to an ebook, I feel that this is a book that should be read in print. There is nothing like feeling the weight of a book in your hands, seeing how far you are into the story and marking your place with a bookmark between the thick pages of printed paper. The page count of the book translates into a physical presence. The book sits on my coffee table, a quiet and imposing object that reminds me that I am reading a long and complex story. The book is a commitment that you can see and feel.

For comparison, the graphic novel adaptation of The Hobbit by David Wenzel comes in at about 130 pages. As expected, the more visual graphic novel format can get the same story told across in fewer pages of prose than The Hobbit novel. Tolkien uses all those extra pages to relate his unique narrative voice, to include all the songs from the novel, and lots of very descriptive asides too. Those are things you’re paying for.

For the sake of clarification, The Little Stranger is a very long book, and it has four parts and an epilogue. You can take it one part at a time, starting with Part One, which introduces the ‘nice little family’ in rather explosive fashion, and then leaves you in suspense as the first part comes to a close. If Part One doesn’t grab you, then perhaps The Little Stranger is not the book for you right now. But if it does grab you, then the rest of the book won’t feel like such a slog. The structure of the book is your friend, and it should help you to manage the scale of the undertaking.

A more practical view of the book would be that when reading ‘Shatter Me’ on a reading app, the book is counted as having between 340 and 360 pages depending on the font size. I read this book on my phone during my lunch breaks and it took me about a week and a half to read. Each chapter is quite short and so it is very easy to read a few pages during breaks and feel satisfied that you have read ‘just one more chapter’. The core story is not changed by this, but the official page count for ‘Shatter Me’ is 352 pages. As a result, this is a great book for someone who is trying to get back into reading as it is very digestible.