What’s the longest book you have read?

I actually don’t know the length of the longest book I’ve ever read. Although I keep track of each book I read I don’t track pages read. It doesn’t really seem that relevant.

There have been times when I’ll get half way through a book and I’ll look to the last pages to see how far I still have to go. This can even happen with a good book. I was just reading an autobiography which was very interesting and illuminating, but it was starting to drag a bit in the middle and I started looking at page numbers as if silently clicking them off with each turn of the page.

I wonder if this is also because of always being attached to our phones and mindlessly scrolling and consuming short form video. Has it become more difficult to sit down and read for an extended length of time. While reading I’ll find myself glancing to my phone, wondering what’s new, who’s doing what and why. Are we becoming a culture of observing, watching as others do things instead of reading and thinking.

I was at my Mom’s last week and I happened to be glancing through her bookcase absentmindedly looking for a new book to read. She had an old worn copy of War and Peace. I asked her if she had ever read it and to my surprise she said she had. My Mom reads but I never suspected she had read a lengthy novel of Russian history. My Dad I could picture him reading it and probably enjoying it. She encouraged me to take it but I declined saying I was looking for something a little more lighthearted than that. I also remarked that it seemed like a good book to read during the winter holed up in front of a fireplace as the wind whips around outside.

I’m currently reading what I would describe as a drugstore paperback. It’s an old timey murder mystery set in the 1920’s. It has that mystery noir feeling to it of backrooms, cigar smoke, treachery, double crosses, baseball and an old girlfriend who shows up unexpectedly. I’m only halfway through it but I’m betting the dame is mixed up in it somehow. I was hoping the old girlfriend might be variously described as a broad, skirt, doll or even a gal, but alas those terms haven’t been used and in that respect the book is a slight disappointment.

I once tried reading Moby Dick one summer. It was when I was in college and I figured I should read one of the classics on summer break. I have no idea how I came to choose Moby Dick besides knowing it was considered a classic and had all these existential themes of man’s journey, his perseverance and commitment. I don’t actually know if those themes are relevant to Moby Dick or not because I never even made it through one chapter. I remember reading the first couple of pages….there’s a guy named Ishmael, he wants to get on a whaling vessel and then I fell asleep. Odd I remember thinking, I never fall asleep reading especially back then when I was young and could stay up all night. A few nights later I tried again….there’s a guy who wants to be called Ishmael, he wants to get on a whaling vessel and then I fell asleep.

Obviously I never made it through Moby Dick that summer. It sat on my desk for weeks untouched after those first few attempts and finally I returned it to the library before I was charged a late fee. I do remember thinking thank god I didn’t buy the damned thing.

Perhaps I’ll attempt to read Moby Dick again or War and Peace or some other great Russian novel. I do love the movie Dr. Zhivago so the book must also be good. Dr. Zhivago is another book that seems appropriate to read during the darkest, coldest months of the year.

Until then I’ll continue with my mystery noir wondering how the broad, the dame, the skirt is going to double cross the main character. Perhaps that’s what Moby Dick is really missing, a skirt that comes back to torment Ishmael or maybe a broad is the real reason Captain Ahab chases the whale….. nothing beats a broad who’s been scorned and has trust issues.

Peace and Love,

John