Average size in pages of books you read

[Neil]

Was thinking about this the other day as some people love the shorter stories and others the epic novel. I seem to always pick up the thicker books around 600 - 700 pages in length. But love a quick 300 - 400 pager.

[Pete]

I agree. I do not enjoy short stories as I like to be involved in the character and their issues.

[Brenda, Aussie Authors Queen]

I usually try to read between 300/400 pages.. I don't like the long ones, but just recently finished 620 pages...I also don't really enjoy short stories, though sometimes they're well written!

[Katie]

I usually read 300/400 page books give or take a few but ill read anything if its good no matter how many pages.. :)

[Deb]

I like 250 - 300 pages if the book is for Book Club. Sometimes it is just too hard to finish a book in a month, when you have other books on the go besides work and other commitments. We often find that many book clubbers can't finish the book if it is over 400+ pages. Then the discussion goes nowhere. No body has read enough to discuss anything. Then we usually talk about movies.

[Kelly]

I tend to pick out 300/400 page books. But I will read 1000+ pages as well. Amount of pages doesn't bother me, it's what's inside that matters.

[l]

The average is probably 250-400 pages.

[Brenda, Aussie Authors Queen]

It looks like most of us pretty much choose/like the same length books, though we can vary it!

[Tash]

300 - 400 pages if it a paperback, if it is a eBook not too fussed

[Dale]

varies too much to say

[Khenan]

500-600 for fantasy(though after finishing all wheel of time novels i'm not much of a fan of 700-900 for 13 books in a row.. :P), otherwise general books 300-400 in general

i really enjoy short stories too (more so short story collections)

[Tango]

I'll read any length, but am saving a 1000 page book for the holidays. I must admit that I will only tackle a really long one if I know it's going to be good, judging by reviews or recommendations. Our book club tries to stick to shorter ones (300-400) as we have a 6 week turn around and some members find it hard to complete anything longer.

[Lynxie]

It seems my average page length this year is 184 pages.

This is based upon my current reading challenge stats. I've read 105 books and a total of 19345 pages. I do wonder though if that doesn't include the books that don't record their total pages on the book data information?!

Personally I don't mind a thick book, but there's a bit of a limit. I think the thickest book I've read was about 1000 pages long. the longest book I've read this year was Inheritance at 860 pages.

[Margaret]

I prefer books around 200 pages, but really, it's not the length that matters, it's the content. :) I particularly like books that have complete tales within a chapter, as in many of the James Herriot books.

[Tahlia]

200 to 400 pages generally, if it's a paperback, but electronically, I prefer them shorter. Anything too long (ie over 100,000 words - around 450 -500 pages) makes me a bit suspicious, because it could just be long winded, especially if it's an Indie book. Sometimes really long books would be a lot better with a tighter edit.

Electronic books have given a lot more options in length though and I find myself enjoying shorter books as well.

I never used to like short stories, but on the Kindle, an occasional short story is excellent between longer books. I like the single short stories you can get for 99c. I prefer them to collections (even though I've put out a collection myself, I still have single shorts as well). One short story fills the time before you have to start dinner or when you're waiting at the doctors.

What I like about Novellas is that you can read them in one night. I call those around 50,000 words or less movie length because I can red them in a couple of hours. Good if the family is watching a movie you're not particularly interested in.

[Tahlia]

Tango wrote: "I'll read any length, but am saving a 1000 page book for the holidays. I must admit that I will only tackle a really long one if I know it's going to be good, judging by reviews or recommendations...."
At 1000 pages, it'd want to be pretty good for me to pick it up.

[Tahlia]

Tamara wrote: "Most of the books I read are around 300-400 pages. I have read some longer, and lots of shorter books (around the 200 page mark), and enjoyed them equally. It just seems that most of the authors I ..."
I always think of 100,000 words as a 'full size' novel. That's probably because I read a lot of fantasy and they are often longer than other genres.

[Zara's Retreat]

I seem to have a thing of late for bigger books. In fact, it's more a case of the bigger the better. By this I mean 800+ pages although I'm happy to read books of 200+ pages as well.

[Michael]

This year is the first time my average page count has gotten over 300 pages, with an average of 318

[Brenda, Aussie Authors Queen]

You quite often read long books too Michael!

[[deleted user]]

300 to 400 pages -> just enough to fully tell a story without getting bogged down. Clancy writes longer (and I like the older Clancy), but if I'm honest, I probably only read 300 to 400 pages of his books. Once he starts sliding into the Janes Fighting Ships excerpts I tend to skip ahead.

[[deleted user]]

My average page count for the last 6 months was 365. I did read at least 3 books over 800 pages, the longest being 1500

[Nicki]

I read anything from 50 pages up to 1000 pages, but on average, I'd say most fall in the 250-450 mark.

[Susanna]

A big book can feel like an achievement but really if the story holds you, I dont think it matters about the length. I read and loved Snake by Kate Jennings and it was more novella than novel but was a cracking read.

[Brenda, Aussie Authors Queen]

I'm closing this thread as another one very similar has been opened...please refer to it for comments and add your discussions:)

http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/1...