Big Books Challenge: 700+ Pages to Tackle Before New Year

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Every December, the same quiet panic sets in. You open your reading tracker, see you’re six books short of your goal, and start eyeing 90-page novellas the way a marathoner eyes a shortcut through the parking lot.

This year, let’s do the opposite. Let’s finish the year with one glorious, spine-cracking, wrist-straining doorstop of a book. Not because it helps your numbers (it absolutely does not), but because there is no satisfaction quite like closing the back cover of something that could double as a home-defense weapon.

Welcome to the Big Books Challenge: pick one book of 700 pages or more and finish it before the ball drops on New Year’s Eve.

The Math Is Shockingly on Your Side

Big books are intimidating mostly because we picture them all at once. Broken into days, they shrink to something almost polite.

Start on November 15, and you have 47 days until December 31. That works out to:

700 pages: about 15 pages a day. That’s one cup of coffee. Maybe one-and-a-half if the coffee is good.
1,000 pages: about 21 pages a day, or roughly the time you spend deciding what to watch on streaming before giving up and rewatching something.
1,400 pages (yes, Les Misérables): about 30 pages a day. Ambitious, heroic, and entirely doable if you treat your commute like a barricade.

Starting later? Fine. Double your daily pages and tell everyone you’re “in training.”

The Rules (Such as They Are)

700 pages, minimum. Page counts vary by edition, so go by the edition in your hands. Hunting down the large-print version to inflate the number is technically legal and spiritually suspect.
Any genre counts. Classic, thriller, fantasy, romance, nonfiction. A big book is a big book.
Audiobooks count. Ears are part of your head, and your head is where reading happens.
Rereads count. Returning to an old friend is not cheating. It’s loyalty.
Abridged editions do not count. You know why.
Tell us what you picked. Drop your title in the comments so the rest of us can cheer, commiserate, and occasionally ask, “Wait, how many pages is that?”

Pick Your Doorstop

Page counts below are approximate and based on common paperback editions. Your mileage (and your forearms) may vary.

For the Classics Devotee

Middlemarch by George Eliot (~880 pages). Virginia Woolf called it one of the few English novels written for grown-up people. Prepare to have strong opinions about Mr. Casaubon by page 50. [Buy]
Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy (~860 pages). Trains, ballrooms, scandal, and a surprising amount of farming. Stay for Levin’s mowing scene, which is somehow thrilling. [Buy]
The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas (~1,250 pages, unabridged). The original revenge thriller. Edmond Dantès has a very long memory and an even longer to-do list. [Buy]
Les Misérables by Victor Hugo (~1,400 pages). Yes, there’s a long detour on the Battle of Waterloo. Yes, there’s a chapter on the Paris sewers. No, you will not regret it. [Buy]
War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy (~1,200+ pages). The final boss of big books. Keep a character list handy; half the cast has three names and a nickname. [Buy]
Bleak House by Charles Dickens (~1,000 pages). It’s a lawsuit so long it eats entire families. This novel is very relatable for anyone who has ever waited on hold. [Buy]
The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky (~800 pages). Faith, murder, family dysfunction, and the Grand Inquisitor. Basically the most intense holiday dinner ever written. [Buy]

For the Plot-Hungry

The Stand by Stephen King (~1,150 pages, complete and uncut). Explore a pandemic, a cross-country journey, and a battle of good versus evil. This novel pairs well with hand sanitizer. [Buy]
Shōgun by James Clavell (~1,150 pages). Here’s a novel about shipwreck, intrigue, and feudal Japan. You’ll be up past midnight saying, “Just one more chapter” for the fortieth time. [Buy]
Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry (~850 pages). This novel features a cattle drive that will wreck you emotionally. Bring tissues and possibly a horse. [Buy]
The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett (~970 pages). Twelfth-century cathedral construction has no right to be this addictive. [Buy]
11/22/63 by Stephen King (~850 pages). Here’s time travel, a tender love story, and the JFK assassination. It’s a big book that reads like a short one. [Buy]
Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell (~1,000 pages). This epic novel is sweeping, divisive, and impossible to ignore. Read it with a critical eye and a strong cup of tea. [Buy]

For the Modern Literary Reader

The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt (~770 pages). Here’s a stolen painting, a grieving boy, and some truly questionable decisions in Las Vegas. [Buy]
A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara (~720 pages). This novel is famous for breaking readers’ hearts. Please schedule something cheerful for afterward. [Buy]
Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace (~1,080 pages). The novel comes with nearly 400 endnotes. Use two bookmarks and a sense of humor. [Buy]
The Covenant of Water by Abraham Verghese (~720 pages). Three generations in Kerala, a family mystery, and prose that makes the pages vanish. [Buy]
2666 by Roberto Bolaño (~900 pages). Five interlocking parts, one haunting center. Not light, but unforgettable. [Buy]

For the Escape Artist

Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke (~780 pages). Regency England, rival magicians, and footnotes as delightful as the story. [Buy]
The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson (~1,000 pages). Fair warning: finishing it means there are four more, each roughly the same heft. [Buy]
The Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon (~830 pages). Dragons, queens, and a standalone epic that actually stands alone. A rare and precious thing. [Buy]
Outlander by Diana Gabaldon (~850 pages). Time travel to the Scottish Highlands. Kilts optional. Swooning likely. [Buy]

Survival Strategies for the Long Haul

Set a daily page goal, not a deadline. “Fifteen pages” is a promise you can keep. “Finish War and Peace” is a promise you’ll renegotiate in a week.

Pair print with audio. Read at home, listen in the car, while you wrap gifts, or while you pretend to enjoy shopping-mall traffic. Many readers find this the single best trick for staying on pace.

Weaponize the holidays. Airport delays, long car rides, the hour after a big meal when everyone dozes on the couch: these are reading windows disguised as inconveniences. “Sorry, can’t help with the dishes, I’m at the barricades” is a perfectly reasonable sentence in December.

Keep a cheat sheet. Tuck a character list or family tree inside the cover. There’s no shame in it. Even Tolstoy probably needed one.

Protect your wrists. A big hardcover is a workout. Consider the ebook, a book pillow, or simply reading lying down with the book propped on your chest like a Victorian invalid.

Allow the slow stretch. Every big book has a section that drags. Push through it. The payoff is usually waiting on the other side, and the slog makes the ending sweeter.

Why Bother?

Because short books are wonderful, but big books are a different kind of experience. You don’t just read them; you live with them. The characters move in. You start referencing them in conversation. You find yourself worrying about a fictional 19th-century Russian landowner while waiting in line at the post office.

And on January 1, when everyone else is making resolutions, you get to say something few people can: I finished it. That’s not a resolution. That’s a trophy.

Your Turn

Which doorstop are you tackling before New Year? A classic you’ve been avoiding since college? A fantasy epic you’ve been saving? Something not on this list at all? Tell us in the comments, and check back to share your progress. We’ll be over here, somewhere around page 412, wondering why we ever doubted ourselves.

Happy reading, and may your bookmarks be ever forward-moving.