Does Size Really Matter?

[Chris Tusa]

Just wondering . . . I tend to look for books between 200-350 pages, and I often find myself ignoring books that are really long (500 pages or more). Do others do this as well? Are you suspicious of shorter books? Impressed by longer books? Just curious.

[Peter Lins Conceição de Medeiros]

I've never judged the books I read for its amount of pages... I don't think the amount of pages of a book can define a book as well or badly written, as a good or bad book. If the author can make out what he wants to write in 100 pages, it's not a problem.

[Christy Pinheiro]

It's so odd that this discussion was started; I was e-mailing Joe about this same subject today.

For non-fiction books, page count affects profitability in two ways-- people are busy-- they don't want to deal with a 500-page monster to get the information they need. That's why the "for dummies" books are so popular.

On the flip side, books that are UNDER 100 pages don't sell as well because people feel that it's going to be a "booklet".

So I always shoot between 150-250 pages for non-fiction titles, and I always include and index and a TOC.

[Sophie]

I tend to go for longer reads and disregard the shorter ones. But honestly, if the first line or first page is really good, the book will make it out to my hammock.

[Barbara Jackson]

Well, i've enjoyed many novellas (Turn of the Screw, Heart of Darkness, The Awakening), but I love nineteenth century novels and they're usually the length of a bible :O) I think it purely depends on the book and whether I'm enjoying it. Some books I just never want to end because I am so enjoying the world they have created for me, and they always seem too short. (say Middlemarch), others (like the new Dan Brown book that i picked up in ASDA in a moment of weakness) I can't wait to finish. After reading quite a few eighteenth century novels including Clarissa which is about 1500 pages long, I probably look on anything under 500 pages as a short story!

[theBookChubi]

Long doesn't necessarily impress me, but I do notice that my bookshelf is filled with thicker books. I read so quickly that the thinner the book the more skeptical I am that it will fill my time. There are only a few authors who I buy their books even though I know it will only take me a few days to finish it.

This caught my attention because just this past month I was at the bookstore trying to decide between a few different book options. In the end I picked the one with the most pages (better value maybe?). I don't know why that was my deciding factor, but I did want a book that was going to take a chunk of time to get through, yet I still wanted the story to move. It worked (at least that time) because the book was fantastic and I'm excited to get the sequel.

http://thebookchubi.blogspot.com

[Stacy-Deanne (Novelist)]

Hi Chris,

I've deleted my posts from this thread because someone who answered took the time to be very rude and nasty to me personally. I was very offended by what she said and I have no desire to be apart of the discussion if we can't speak our opinions without being personally attacked. I hadn't been in this thread in a while so I just saw her post (from August). She knows who she is. Anyway, I can now say that there are rude people on Book Blogs even though I thought this board wasn't like most of the others. That person showed me I was wrong. I'm very offended. I could have responded to her on the board but I decided not to go to that level and leave it private.

Best Wishes!

http://www.stacy-deanne.net

[RYCJ]

Chris I'm with you... and many others commenting here. I've read some really good 200-pagers and less, although I prefer books within the page-length you've mentioned, for reasons many others mentioned.