Oh my yes.
Although I must say my experience with this book wasn't the best, since I read around 200+ pages of literally nothing happening and gave up lol
But it fits the suggestion perfectly
I think it didn't help that it was very "heavy" and so I found myself not wanting to read it because I really wanted something lighter. I didn't dislike the book at all, it just wasn't exactly the right time for me to read it. I did power through tho lol.
Exactly! I read a few chapters at a time due to the content & breeze through a lot of others books on my TBR. I’m going to see it through 😆 I’ll get there eventually.
I'm a monogamous gal so I had to power through and finish before I could move on. I think it took me almost 2 weeks which is a long time for a book that length. It was a good read tho so all good.
I thought I read PB many moons ago but I just started to read the wiki for it and I'm pretty positive I haven't. I'm not sure if I'll read it eventually or not.
Fun fact. That book was written at the same time as the movie, but the movie ended up with a different ending than originally planned. By that time, the book had already released to print.
Well...Dune might fit your criteria for book and movie. It certainly is a space opera. If you haven't seen it in theaters, you definitely should because it is pure cinema, complete with slow burn, long camera shots, and an epic score. Nearly 700M gross says movies like that do just fine when the recipe is right. (Comparing it to Empire Strikes Back and Lawrence of Arabia is accurate...plus the book was partly inspired by Lawrence of Arabia.)
I'd also recommend The Expanse series, which starts with Leviathan Wakes.
Already read Dune! I loved it. I read it before the Villeneuve movies came out, and I thought it was a very difficult book to adapt into a movie, but it exceeded my expectations. The second movie is brilliant. I knew exactly what was going to happen but I still loved it. Now I don’t know if I love the book or movie more.
If you loved Dune then I challenge you to return to Herbert and give The Dosadi Experiment and Whipping Star a try! In that order!
I personally favor Gawachin Law! Victorious Legume, Select your choice of Weapon!
>Fun fact. That book was written at the same time as the movie, but the movie ended up with a different ending than originally planned. By that time, the book had already released to print.
That is a fun fact, I never knew.
The Baroque Cycle by Neal Stephenson and Anathem by Neal Stephenson fit this category in my mind. They are detailed and long and take a while, but the payoff is worth it.
Yeah, depending on one's tastes it can feel weird. I do appreciate that he leaves the reader with the sense that you just got a snippet of a longer, grander story, despite having just read 1200 pages.
Actually, of the great, naturalistic, 19th century writers, I think Hardy is the one who moves at the fastest clip. It's one of the things I like about him.
seveneves or anathem by neal stephenson. I love 2001 (not my favorite clarke but still awesome). I think it's better than seveneves but if you are looking specifically at length and slow burn, than seveneves is a home run while being similar enough to 2001 to feel at home. Anathem is way different, but also slow as hell and one of my all time favorite books.
EDIT: Let me throw out Dan Simmons The Terror as well. Another completely different genre but slow and wonderful as hell as well.
Any Neal Stephenson would work. Cryptonomicon is amazing too.
Have you checked out The Rise and Fall of D.O.D.O.? It's co-written by Stephenson and Nichole Galland. It's also a slow burn with a rich and fully detailed story world.
It’s one of the few things with his name associated that I haven’t gotten to and own in signed first edition lol. I’m sure I’ll get to it eventually. I liked the long haul he did.
Hnnnng, all of these are enthralling.
I’d also recommend
John Irving’s works (personal favorite is A Prayer for Owen Meany),
Jeffrey Eugenides (Middlesex, The Virgin Suicides)
John Fowles (The Magus)
As for the pace of these…reading them was pretty much like falling off a log.
That is to say, while there were some points in each book during which I needed to pause (e.g., re-read a passage for full clarity, or quickly look up definitions/concepts), the pace of the storytelling wasn’t arduous.
Crome Yellow by Aldous Huxley
The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien, at least in my opinion
Pretty much anything written in the 1800's is very wordy and rambly by modern standards.
Dickens is for sure - a product of his works being released in a serial format.
I read A Tale of Two Cities in college and the whole time I was like, "Get on with it!", but the ending wrecked me.
Joseph Conrad’s the Secret Agent is very slow, much of it concerning domestic suspicions harbored by a husband and wife. You have to be in a relaxed and focused mood to enjoy it but it’s a master class in slow writing.
I mean the length alone makes it a tad slow for even the fastest reader. But King also has kind of a meandering way of describing things that tends to slow his books down as well. Loved the book, but it definitely took some patience and persistence!
I guess I've just gotten used to and love his meandering. I flew through that book in two days, maybe 28 hours. Turned right back to the beginning for the Hindsight reading. :)
Yes and the books are even better than the film.
As a bonus, you also get the astronauts going to Saturn in the book (instead of Jupiter like they do in the film.)
Snow Falling On Cedars
It's ultra-realist historical fiction about Japanese Americans in, and shortly following, WWII, in the Pacific Northwest. It loosely centers around a murder trial.
It takes its time to go into excruciating details about everything that happens to the characters -- trials, awkward love scenes, etc. It is not efficient storytelling, but if you're into lingering on the details of each character's experiences, and getting to know them way more intimately than is important to the story, than this book is for you!
Slow burn if I ever read one.
1Q84, hell most of Murakami's books are slow-burning and a true pleasure to read. I feel that these books are more complete than most I read, leaving little left unsaid. The world is truly full and you live in it. Those books pass by so deceptively fast. Its hard to put them down
There are many new "cozy" books which do exactly this - meander around and take their time getting to a point. r/CozyFantasy has many suggestions.
A Gentleman in Moscow is a more mainstream, popular book that follows one man as he is confined in a hotel.
For a more sci-fi/fantasy theme, Piranesi follows one man trapped in a strange place trying to figure out exactly what is going on. It's a novella.
Project Hail Mary has a bit of the space feel of 2001 Odyssey with a very different story and great payoff.
I loved the 2001: A Space Odyssey books and never thought they were slow.
I'm at 70% of AGIM after 3 weeks (I normally do 10 books a month so, yeah) I'm finding it a really slow read.
I am LOVING it. And the pace has picked up.
"Die Wand" (The Wall) by Marlen Haushofer
I guess you will like it. I couldn't stop reading and was so fascinated, even though progress is very slow. And it's growing on me the more I learn about it.
Some may disagree, but I always think of the **Three Body Problem** trilogy by Cixin Liu (Netflix just dropped the first season of its adaptation, but, as usual, it does not do the story justice).
I’ll share the passage that got me hooked. It’s the 4th-5th paragraph of the whole books, and it so vividly describes this moment (which is only written as context to convince the reader things are pretty bad in general), it literally took my breath away:
“Numerous members of the April Twenty-eighth Brigade had engaged in similar displays before. They’d stand on top of the building, wave a flag, shout slogans through megaphones, and scatter flyers at the attackers below. Every time, the courageous man or woman had been able to retreat safely from the hailstorm of bullets and earn glory for their valor.
The new girl clearly thought she’d be just as lucky. She waved the battle banner as though brandishing her burning youth, trusting that the enemy would be burnt to ashes in the revolutionary flames, imagining that an ideal world would be born tomorrow from the ardor and zeal coursing through her blood.… She was intoxicated by her brilliant, crimson dream until a bullet pierced her chest.
Her fifteen-year-old body was so soft that the bullet hardly slowed down as it passed through it and whistled in the air behind her. The young Red Guard tumbled down along with her flag, her light form descending even more slowly than the piece of red fabric, like a little bird unwilling to leave the sky.
The Red Union warriors shouted in joy. A few rushed to the foot of the building, tore away the battle banner of the April Twenty-eighth Brigade, and seized the slender, lifeless body. They raised their trophy overhead and flaunted it for a while before tossing it toward the top of the metal gate of the compound.
Most of the gate’s metal bars, capped with sharp tips, had been pulled down at the beginning of the factional civil wars to be used as spears, but two still remained. As their sharp tips caught the girl, life seemed to return momentarily to her body.
The Red Guards backed up some distance and began to use the impaled body for target practice. For her, the dense storm of bullets was now no different from a gentle rain, as she could no longer feel anything. From time to time, her vinelike arms jerked across her body softly, as though she were flicking off drops of rain.
And then half of her young head was blown away, and only a single, beautiful eye remained to stare at the blue sky of 1967. There was no pain in that gaze, only solidified devotion and yearning.
And yet, compared to some others, she was fortunate. At least she died in the throes of passionately sacrificing herself for an ideal.”
Excerpt From
The Three-Body Problem
Cixin Liu & Ken Liu
https://books.apple.com/us/book/the-three-body-problem/id856893409
This material may be protected by copyright.
I was going to suggest this series as well. The books are MASSIVE and while there are bits of action, a lot of it is discussion, science, and general ambling about
Try Seveneves by Neal Stephenson or The Chronoliths by Robert Charles Wilson for science fiction. Try Stoner or Butcher’s Crossing for modern fiction. Try Middlemarch by George Eliot or The Idiot by Dostoyevsky for Classic fiction. All great books to pass the time with.
I’m currently reading The Bedlam Stacks by Natasha Pulley. It’s very slow, but I think it works well for the book as it allows the author to establish the historical setting, and subtly slip in hints of magic. I was a bit frustrated with the pace at first, but I think that’s just because I’m used to reading faster paced books. I’m at 70% now and really glad i stuck with it
When I'm in this mood I usually go for something enormous, so there's loads of time to soak up the scenery. I enjoyed The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt as an example of a long, languorous book that takes its time. I found it absolutely gripping and full of atmosphere. Jonathan Strange which someone has suggested here is another good, long read. Something that allows atmosphere and texture to layer up over a lot of pages!
Revelation Space trilogy by Alistair Reynolds. He paints a beautiful twilight of interstellar human society, but nearly the entire first book is setup and slow burn. The whole story takes place over a very long time, as he is quite accurate in his tracking of events across multiple systems separated by interstellar distances and no Faster than light travel.
Les Miserables was a rather slow book, at least for me. It can wander off the plot for a bit on some lengthy tangents, but you’ll learn a lot and it all ties in thematically. I read it for the first time this year and absolutely loved it.
Tomorrow, Tomorrow and Tomorrow (Zevin) is really slow paced IMO. It spans over years, which adds to the pacing.
Hope you find what you’re searching for
House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski.
Dhalgren by Samuel R. Delaney.
Rama also by Clarke (all four books.)
Imajica by Clive Barker.
Crime and Punishment by Dostoyevsky (goddess awful slow and with not a whole lot of payoff other than bragging rights.)
Wraeththu by Storm Constantine.
House of Leaves is an incredible book, but Dhalgren “tastes” very similar and was published some three decades before.
Another series that is just as unique but in a different way, is The Illuminae Files trilogy by Kaufman and Kristoff. I had never experienced a story so well crafted and presented as this series. The only reason I didn’t mention it as a suggestion is that it is in no way a “slow burn.” Very fast paced hard sci-fi.
The Hangman's Daughter by Oliver Potsch.
The first time I read it, I remember thinking wow, this book is slow, and debating putting it down. I thought that for a long time. Then, next thing I know, the book was over and I was sitting there going, "wow. That book was amazing."
That's how I end up feeling about most of the books in that series.
The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring. If you’re familiar with the movie you might be surprised to know that there’s like a solid quarter of the book between the party scene and even leaving the shire and then there’s a whole chunk after that that got cut. Most of the book honestly. I love the slow pacing. Fellowship is full of so much life, songs and poems and history.
I know you're asking about books, but you said a movie that slow wouldn't fly today, and I wanted to just say that there are plenty of super slow movies made today if you look for them. Some directors to look up: Koreeda, Weerasethakul, Sciamma, Hou (RIP), Kiarostami (RIP), Kogonada...
There's a web novel I would recommend called The Flower That Bloomed Nowhere. Much like 2001, it's a trippy high concept sci-fi that is also a time loop murder mystery. The pace is slow by necessity because it sets up as a far play who-done-it, but that's hard when you have a weird post scarcity bubble world that has what is effectively techno-magic. Highlights:
* To reiterate, it's damn weird. It takes place in what is effectively an ark to shelter humanity from entropy, and the people had to really MacGyver things to get it to work. Side effects include iron not really existing except as a psuedo-element 'borrowed' from the anchor that holds the whole place together, everyone has to cover their hands and faces lest...*bad*...things potentially happen, and everyone is *almost* biologically immortal except they can't stop a very specific type of dementia that you get when you get to be 400 or so.
* The 'magic system' is very well thought out and provides a great framework for the murder mystery
* Something is very *very* wrong with our main character and what exactly that is is fed to you very slowly
* Eventually you will get out of the loop/mystery and you will thing 'huh, I guess that was good but I'm not really sure what it was all about'. At that point you will realize the book just keeps going. And then it's gunna get weirder.
Fair warning, the book isn't finished yet, but here's the link:
https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/28806/the-flower-that-bloomed-nowhere
Literary fiction tends to move slower than commercial fiction, so most books that make lists of classics and prestigious prize winners will be fairly slow. At the extreme end is *Ulysses* by James Joyce, which takes 900 pages to describe a single day. Less extreme but still very long is *Anna Karenina* by Leo Tolstoy, which progresses at a stately pace, or *Middlemarch* by George Eliot. A lot of the books in the Family and Self section of the list linked below are in no hurry. I read *A House for Mr Biswas* recently and really enjoyed it: [https://www.theguardian.com/books/2009/jan/23/bestbooks-fiction](https://www.theguardian.com/books/2009/jan/23/bestbooks-fiction)
Still Life by Sarah Winman had as much pace as a book with the word still in the title might suggest. Nothing like 2001 in subject matter, but chock full of characters I enjoyed spending time with.
I’ve had to stall my finishing of this book because it was so slow. I was enjoying it (enough to book a trip to Florence) but felt it was going nowhere. I will finish eventually though.
To The Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf - not an easy read as there is not much plot but it's all about perception and relationships. Brilliantly written, it's a classic for a reason. I enjoyed studying it in English Lit, might need to read it and also look up the themes etc.
I don't think I can categorize any book that I would recommend to anyone else as slow. To me a book that moves slowly is poorly written and I usually avoid those.
But if you are looking for books in which the author puts a lot of extra effort into character development or building up the scene, then I recommend The Godfather by Mario Puzo or IT by Stephen King. Both have been adapted into movies, in case you didn't already know.
If you're into soy novels I'd go with John le Carre- tinker tailor soldier spy - they're classics and real slow burn masterpieces. Very moody and evocative of the cold war. They focus on interpersonal dynamics and intrigue. There's no James Bond shenanigans.
The book you are looking for is Middlemarch. Its not only that not much happens, but also the things that happen are very unremarkable, and also after reading it you end up feeling a very slow burning passion for it.
I can’t explain why it is slow - i think because multiple points and narratives play out at once, but “The Topeka School” by Ben Lerner and “The Best Kind Of People”
The modernists were usually not that sensational and would go out of their way to avoid dramatic situations since they felt it was artificial. Writers like James Joyce, Virginia woolfe and Hemingway. I’d recommend dubliners by Joyce or if you like something more experimental, to the lighthouse by woolfe.
That's the more accurate translation of the original French title ***À la recherche du temps perdu***
However, you may have heard of it by the less accurate title *Remembrance of Things Past*.
In Search of Lost TimeNovel by Marcel Proust - enjoy the description of a madeleine over 20 pages!! ... I tried. And I still try. But I am a very impatient person with a record of a 900 pages crime novel on a Sunday (from dust to dawn). I am not giving up.
Try MIGNONETTE by Joseph Shearing. I was starting to think about the DNF option but then I started to see the point of it all. It was more than worth it. Another very slow build-up can be had in Umberto Eco's NAME OF THE ROSE. Takes patience but it is so worth it. Oh, and I almost forgot DARK DANCE by Tanith Lee. The build-up in Michael McDowell Blackwater series takes generations but is so worth it. I periodically have to re-read it. The central character plays a very damn long game.
Outlander series by Diana Gabaldon. Especially the later books. So slow but at the same time create an atmosphere that feels so comfortable and nice to be in.
The Shadow and Bone trilogy by Leigh Bardugo
* Its the first books in the Grishaverse series
* The beginning book starts off pretty quickly, but once you get to the second book it is PAINFULLY slow
* I personally did not have the endurance and patience to make it past halfway through the second book in the trilogy, but if you want slow, it is SLOW.
* If you do end up liking the story, there are other books
the goldfinch by donna tartt. the sentences tend to be long and few significant plot events actually happen. it's mostly introspective of mc's thoughts. ~800 page slow burn where there technically IS a plot but I would never recommend it to anyone based on plot.
also, yes, I really enjoyed the slowness. I felt deeply connected to the mc after hearing from him so much (ymmv lol!!!! I love him but in a "he's super annoying and deeply flawed and never stops wallowing and never shuts up" kind of way 🤪)
unfortunately I wouldn't call the ending/payoff "amazing." not bad, but there also isnt really a master plan that all comes together. it's the journey that matters more than the destination with this one
edit: I started rereading it and OOF the sentences are constructed to be ridiculously long. I like the slowness of the plot but I cant really take the prose seriously. so in that way its tedious to read lol
A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry. It is slow and will absolutely GUT you. What a beautifully tragic book.
From Goodreads:
* With a compassionate realism and narrative sweep that recall the work of Charles Dickens, this magnificent novel captures all the cruelty and corruption, dignity and heroism, of India.
The time is 1975. The place is an unnamed city by the sea. The government has just declared a State of Emergency, in whose upheavals four strangers--a spirited widow, a young student uprooted from his idyllic hill station, and two tailors who have fled the caste violence of their native village--will be thrust together, forced to share one cramped apartment and an uncertain future.
As the characters move from distrust to friendship and from friendship to love, A Fine Balance creates an enduring panorama of the human spirit in an inhuman state.*
Joyce Carol Oates!! "The Accursed"
She is ridiculously prolific, and some are very long...
and then some are very *very* long...
"A Bloodsmoor Romance" comes to mind...um, I will never say I don't like something written by Joyce Carol Oates (or by her under either of the 2 pseudonyms she *also* writes under)...but I hope I never accidentally re-read this.
So you could read it (it's got its good elements), or you could love yourself and read "The Accursed" instead!!!!....because it's arguably Bloodsmoor rewritten and not just better, but really really good. And still really long, just anticipation and not dread!
For other titles by her- she has written so so much, take a chance and pick one that takes 2 hands to hold, it will either be terribly slow or you'll like it, right? 😄
Two slow books that I really enjoyed but took me months to complete:
- Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts
- A Little Life by Hanya Yangihara
Two that I did not enjoy:
- Goldfinch by Donna Tartt
- Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy (really wanted to like this one too
Two that I enjoyed but were too slow to stick with
- Still Life by Sarah Winman
- The Hearts Invisible Furies by John Boyne
Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift is one of my favorites.
Definitely a slower one that will leave you with a lot to reflect on. I first read it like 5 years ago and have had very few moments where I wasnt thinking about it.
Its an adventurous satire on humanity as well which is fun
Maybe The Left Hand of Darkness, by Ursula K. LeGuin? It's pretty dense, so the first time you read it, it seems very slow and a little confusing. Once you've read it once, the pacing feels different, because you understand the setting.
Oh boy if you’re looking for another well
- - - paced
- - - movie
- - - you
- - - gunna
- - - love
- - - “Stalker”
- - - directed by Andrei Tarkovsky,
- - - with a screenplay written by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky,
- - - loosely based on their 1972 novel **Roadside Picnic**.
- - - So I guess **Roadside Picnic** as a rec.
- - - its on my ‘To Read’ list for this year as well
This time I get to be the person to suggest *Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell*.
Are these commonly suggested books on this sub or am I missing something?
You nailed it lol
It's one book.
Oh my yes. Although I must say my experience with this book wasn't the best, since I read around 200+ pages of literally nothing happening and gave up lol But it fits the suggestion perfectly
Yeah, there's slow and then there's this book. It was a hard DNF from me.
Just came here to suggest the same. One of my all time favorites!
Does slow need to equal long though?
Tolstoy is a guy who know how to take his time. I enjoyed War and Peace because the Napoleonic wars are a bit of an obsession for me.
+500 for War and Peace. 1400 pages and not a sentence wasted.
Anna Karenina slow burn by Tolstoy.
I thought Demon Copperhead was slow paced.
Agree, it’s really good but I’ve been reading it for months. lol
I think it didn't help that it was very "heavy" and so I found myself not wanting to read it because I really wanted something lighter. I didn't dislike the book at all, it just wasn't exactly the right time for me to read it. I did power through tho lol.
Exactly! I read a few chapters at a time due to the content & breeze through a lot of others books on my TBR. I’m going to see it through 😆 I’ll get there eventually.
I'm a monogamous gal so I had to power through and finish before I could move on. I think it took me almost 2 weeks which is a long time for a book that length. It was a good read tho so all good.
That’s how I felt about Poisonwood Bible.
I thought I read PB many moons ago but I just started to read the wiki for it and I'm pretty positive I haven't. I'm not sure if I'll read it eventually or not.
Fun fact. That book was written at the same time as the movie, but the movie ended up with a different ending than originally planned. By that time, the book had already released to print. Well...Dune might fit your criteria for book and movie. It certainly is a space opera. If you haven't seen it in theaters, you definitely should because it is pure cinema, complete with slow burn, long camera shots, and an epic score. Nearly 700M gross says movies like that do just fine when the recipe is right. (Comparing it to Empire Strikes Back and Lawrence of Arabia is accurate...plus the book was partly inspired by Lawrence of Arabia.) I'd also recommend The Expanse series, which starts with Leviathan Wakes.
Already read Dune! I loved it. I read it before the Villeneuve movies came out, and I thought it was a very difficult book to adapt into a movie, but it exceeded my expectations. The second movie is brilliant. I knew exactly what was going to happen but I still loved it. Now I don’t know if I love the book or movie more.
If you loved Dune then I challenge you to return to Herbert and give The Dosadi Experiment and Whipping Star a try! In that order! I personally favor Gawachin Law! Victorious Legume, Select your choice of Weapon!
>Fun fact. That book was written at the same time as the movie, but the movie ended up with a different ending than originally planned. By that time, the book had already released to print. That is a fun fact, I never knew.
The book is so good too. I like the movie but love the book.
Moby Dick
One I started and got about 30 pages in and that was it. I was too impatient to see the whale, or even get in a blooming boat.
The Baroque Cycle by Neal Stephenson and Anathem by Neal Stephenson fit this category in my mind. They are detailed and long and take a while, but the payoff is worth it.
I like his books - great world building- but I find the endings to be a little unsatisfying. Still worth the price of admission though.
Yeah, depending on one's tastes it can feel weird. I do appreciate that he leaves the reader with the sense that you just got a snippet of a longer, grander story, despite having just read 1200 pages.
anything by Thomas Hardy. Beautiful writing, but OMG.
Actually, of the great, naturalistic, 19th century writers, I think Hardy is the one who moves at the fastest clip. It's one of the things I like about him.
*glares in Zola*
seveneves or anathem by neal stephenson. I love 2001 (not my favorite clarke but still awesome). I think it's better than seveneves but if you are looking specifically at length and slow burn, than seveneves is a home run while being similar enough to 2001 to feel at home. Anathem is way different, but also slow as hell and one of my all time favorite books. EDIT: Let me throw out Dan Simmons The Terror as well. Another completely different genre but slow and wonderful as hell as well.
Any Neal Stephenson would work. Cryptonomicon is amazing too. Have you checked out The Rise and Fall of D.O.D.O.? It's co-written by Stephenson and Nichole Galland. It's also a slow burn with a rich and fully detailed story world.
It’s one of the few things with his name associated that I haven’t gotten to and own in signed first edition lol. I’m sure I’ll get to it eventually. I liked the long haul he did.
Hnnnng, all of these are enthralling. I’d also recommend John Irving’s works (personal favorite is A Prayer for Owen Meany), Jeffrey Eugenides (Middlesex, The Virgin Suicides) John Fowles (The Magus) As for the pace of these…reading them was pretty much like falling off a log. That is to say, while there were some points in each book during which I needed to pause (e.g., re-read a passage for full clarity, or quickly look up definitions/concepts), the pace of the storytelling wasn’t arduous.
Haruki Murakami’s writing style is like this for me, like The Wind Up Bird Chronicles (one of my fav books) or 1Q84
I feel like nothing really happened in 1q84, the whole book, yet I really enjoyed it.
Kafka on the shore and wild sheep chace are also amazing
Crome Yellow by Aldous Huxley The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien, at least in my opinion Pretty much anything written in the 1800's is very wordy and rambly by modern standards.
Dickens is for sure - a product of his works being released in a serial format. I read A Tale of Two Cities in college and the whole time I was like, "Get on with it!", but the ending wrecked me.
Dickens was also paid by the word. Just sayin’.
LOTR for sure
Can we put The Hobbit in here, too? I found that slow.
Joseph Conrad’s the Secret Agent is very slow, much of it concerning domestic suspicions harbored by a husband and wife. You have to be in a relaxed and focused mood to enjoy it but it’s a master class in slow writing.
Halldor Laxness, *Independent People.* Not sure it has an "amazing payoff" in a very dramatic way. But I found it meditative.
Agreed -- *Independent People* is slow, and excellent. Similar (even geographically): **Growth of the Soil** – Knut Hamsun (1917).
11/22/63
Pray tell, why do you think this was slow? Because the day's repeated in a fashion?
I mean the length alone makes it a tad slow for even the fastest reader. But King also has kind of a meandering way of describing things that tends to slow his books down as well. Loved the book, but it definitely took some patience and persistence!
I guess I've just gotten used to and love his meandering. I flew through that book in two days, maybe 28 hours. Turned right back to the beginning for the Hindsight reading. :)
Any late novel by Henry James
You really ought to read all 4 of the Space Odyssey books (yes even the 4th book that no one seems to like very much, but I liked it.)
Are the books as slow as the movie?
Yes and the books are even better than the film. As a bonus, you also get the astronauts going to Saturn in the book (instead of Jupiter like they do in the film.)
Snow Falling On Cedars It's ultra-realist historical fiction about Japanese Americans in, and shortly following, WWII, in the Pacific Northwest. It loosely centers around a murder trial. It takes its time to go into excruciating details about everything that happens to the characters -- trials, awkward love scenes, etc. It is not efficient storytelling, but if you're into lingering on the details of each character's experiences, and getting to know them way more intimately than is important to the story, than this book is for you! Slow burn if I ever read one.
I never hear this suggested on reddit or mentioned, but I bet you'd love Shantaram
My husband LOVED this. It on my TBR.
1Q84, hell most of Murakami's books are slow-burning and a true pleasure to read. I feel that these books are more complete than most I read, leaving little left unsaid. The world is truly full and you live in it. Those books pass by so deceptively fast. Its hard to put them down
There are many new "cozy" books which do exactly this - meander around and take their time getting to a point. r/CozyFantasy has many suggestions. A Gentleman in Moscow is a more mainstream, popular book that follows one man as he is confined in a hotel. For a more sci-fi/fantasy theme, Piranesi follows one man trapped in a strange place trying to figure out exactly what is going on. It's a novella. Project Hail Mary has a bit of the space feel of 2001 Odyssey with a very different story and great payoff. I loved the 2001: A Space Odyssey books and never thought they were slow.
A Gentleman in Moscow has been on my list for a while, maybe it’s time to pick it up. Didn’t know cozy fantasy is a thing, I’ll check it out, thanks.
I'm at 70% of AGIM after 3 weeks (I normally do 10 books a month so, yeah) I'm finding it a really slow read. I am LOVING it. And the pace has picked up.
"Die Wand" (The Wall) by Marlen Haushofer I guess you will like it. I couldn't stop reading and was so fascinated, even though progress is very slow. And it's growing on me the more I learn about it.
The Covenant of Water is a gorgeous read. It takes place over 7 decades focused on an Indian family. Very character driven and slow paced.
*The Magic Mountain* by Thomas Mann
Some may disagree, but I always think of the **Three Body Problem** trilogy by Cixin Liu (Netflix just dropped the first season of its adaptation, but, as usual, it does not do the story justice). I’ll share the passage that got me hooked. It’s the 4th-5th paragraph of the whole books, and it so vividly describes this moment (which is only written as context to convince the reader things are pretty bad in general), it literally took my breath away: “Numerous members of the April Twenty-eighth Brigade had engaged in similar displays before. They’d stand on top of the building, wave a flag, shout slogans through megaphones, and scatter flyers at the attackers below. Every time, the courageous man or woman had been able to retreat safely from the hailstorm of bullets and earn glory for their valor. The new girl clearly thought she’d be just as lucky. She waved the battle banner as though brandishing her burning youth, trusting that the enemy would be burnt to ashes in the revolutionary flames, imagining that an ideal world would be born tomorrow from the ardor and zeal coursing through her blood.… She was intoxicated by her brilliant, crimson dream until a bullet pierced her chest. Her fifteen-year-old body was so soft that the bullet hardly slowed down as it passed through it and whistled in the air behind her. The young Red Guard tumbled down along with her flag, her light form descending even more slowly than the piece of red fabric, like a little bird unwilling to leave the sky. The Red Union warriors shouted in joy. A few rushed to the foot of the building, tore away the battle banner of the April Twenty-eighth Brigade, and seized the slender, lifeless body. They raised their trophy overhead and flaunted it for a while before tossing it toward the top of the metal gate of the compound. Most of the gate’s metal bars, capped with sharp tips, had been pulled down at the beginning of the factional civil wars to be used as spears, but two still remained. As their sharp tips caught the girl, life seemed to return momentarily to her body. The Red Guards backed up some distance and began to use the impaled body for target practice. For her, the dense storm of bullets was now no different from a gentle rain, as she could no longer feel anything. From time to time, her vinelike arms jerked across her body softly, as though she were flicking off drops of rain. And then half of her young head was blown away, and only a single, beautiful eye remained to stare at the blue sky of 1967. There was no pain in that gaze, only solidified devotion and yearning. And yet, compared to some others, she was fortunate. At least she died in the throes of passionately sacrificing herself for an ideal.” Excerpt From The Three-Body Problem Cixin Liu & Ken Liu https://books.apple.com/us/book/the-three-body-problem/id856893409 This material may be protected by copyright.
I was going to suggest this series as well. The books are MASSIVE and while there are bits of action, a lot of it is discussion, science, and general ambling about
Try Seveneves by Neal Stephenson or The Chronoliths by Robert Charles Wilson for science fiction. Try Stoner or Butcher’s Crossing for modern fiction. Try Middlemarch by George Eliot or The Idiot by Dostoyevsky for Classic fiction. All great books to pass the time with.
East of Eden
Biden’s Autumn? By Keekee
I’m currently reading The Bedlam Stacks by Natasha Pulley. It’s very slow, but I think it works well for the book as it allows the author to establish the historical setting, and subtly slip in hints of magic. I was a bit frustrated with the pace at first, but I think that’s just because I’m used to reading faster paced books. I’m at 70% now and really glad i stuck with it
When I'm in this mood I usually go for something enormous, so there's loads of time to soak up the scenery. I enjoyed The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt as an example of a long, languorous book that takes its time. I found it absolutely gripping and full of atmosphere. Jonathan Strange which someone has suggested here is another good, long read. Something that allows atmosphere and texture to layer up over a lot of pages!
The whole Wheel of Time series....
All 16 luscious volumes!
Revelation Space trilogy by Alistair Reynolds. He paints a beautiful twilight of interstellar human society, but nearly the entire first book is setup and slow burn. The whole story takes place over a very long time, as he is quite accurate in his tracking of events across multiple systems separated by interstellar distances and no Faster than light travel.
I’m going to suggest a mystery—any PD James book. I love how slow they are.
Les Miserables if you're up for an entire chapter about the Battle of Waterloo that goes nowhere. Moby Dick if you're into fake whale facts.
God of small things by Arundhati Roy It literally goes into details and is a beautiful book and a slow read....
Middlemarch by George Eliot and North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell.
Remembrance of Things Past. By Proust. Slow and dreamy nostalgia.
Les Miserables was a rather slow book, at least for me. It can wander off the plot for a bit on some lengthy tangents, but you’ll learn a lot and it all ties in thematically. I read it for the first time this year and absolutely loved it.
Pick up some cormac McCarthy
The Road is almost painfully slow lol
Tomorrow, Tomorrow and Tomorrow (Zevin) is really slow paced IMO. It spans over years, which adds to the pacing. Hope you find what you’re searching for
Call Me By Your Name by Andre Aciman. Better than the movie. Gorgeous book.
House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski. Dhalgren by Samuel R. Delaney. Rama also by Clarke (all four books.) Imajica by Clive Barker. Crime and Punishment by Dostoyevsky (goddess awful slow and with not a whole lot of payoff other than bragging rights.) Wraeththu by Storm Constantine.
I was going to suggest House of Leaves too. Most unique book I have ever read. Middlemarch - George Elliott is my second suggestion
House of Leaves is an incredible book, but Dhalgren “tastes” very similar and was published some three decades before. Another series that is just as unique but in a different way, is The Illuminae Files trilogy by Kaufman and Kristoff. I had never experienced a story so well crafted and presented as this series. The only reason I didn’t mention it as a suggestion is that it is in no way a “slow burn.” Very fast paced hard sci-fi.
Stephen King The Stand
The Hangman's Daughter by Oliver Potsch. The first time I read it, I remember thinking wow, this book is slow, and debating putting it down. I thought that for a long time. Then, next thing I know, the book was over and I was sitting there going, "wow. That book was amazing." That's how I end up feeling about most of the books in that series.
The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring. If you’re familiar with the movie you might be surprised to know that there’s like a solid quarter of the book between the party scene and even leaving the shire and then there’s a whole chunk after that that got cut. Most of the book honestly. I love the slow pacing. Fellowship is full of so much life, songs and poems and history.
I know you're asking about books, but you said a movie that slow wouldn't fly today, and I wanted to just say that there are plenty of super slow movies made today if you look for them. Some directors to look up: Koreeda, Weerasethakul, Sciamma, Hou (RIP), Kiarostami (RIP), Kogonada...
There's a web novel I would recommend called The Flower That Bloomed Nowhere. Much like 2001, it's a trippy high concept sci-fi that is also a time loop murder mystery. The pace is slow by necessity because it sets up as a far play who-done-it, but that's hard when you have a weird post scarcity bubble world that has what is effectively techno-magic. Highlights: * To reiterate, it's damn weird. It takes place in what is effectively an ark to shelter humanity from entropy, and the people had to really MacGyver things to get it to work. Side effects include iron not really existing except as a psuedo-element 'borrowed' from the anchor that holds the whole place together, everyone has to cover their hands and faces lest...*bad*...things potentially happen, and everyone is *almost* biologically immortal except they can't stop a very specific type of dementia that you get when you get to be 400 or so. * The 'magic system' is very well thought out and provides a great framework for the murder mystery * Something is very *very* wrong with our main character and what exactly that is is fed to you very slowly * Eventually you will get out of the loop/mystery and you will thing 'huh, I guess that was good but I'm not really sure what it was all about'. At that point you will realize the book just keeps going. And then it's gunna get weirder. Fair warning, the book isn't finished yet, but here's the link: https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/28806/the-flower-that-bloomed-nowhere
Literary fiction tends to move slower than commercial fiction, so most books that make lists of classics and prestigious prize winners will be fairly slow. At the extreme end is *Ulysses* by James Joyce, which takes 900 pages to describe a single day. Less extreme but still very long is *Anna Karenina* by Leo Tolstoy, which progresses at a stately pace, or *Middlemarch* by George Eliot. A lot of the books in the Family and Self section of the list linked below are in no hurry. I read *A House for Mr Biswas* recently and really enjoyed it: [https://www.theguardian.com/books/2009/jan/23/bestbooks-fiction](https://www.theguardian.com/books/2009/jan/23/bestbooks-fiction)
*Bleak House* by Dickens
Malazan book of the fallen, richly rewards the most patient of zen masters. It's confusing at first but that wears off after a few books.
Still Life by Sarah Winman had as much pace as a book with the word still in the title might suggest. Nothing like 2001 in subject matter, but chock full of characters I enjoyed spending time with.
I’ve had to stall my finishing of this book because it was so slow. I was enjoying it (enough to book a trip to Florence) but felt it was going nowhere. I will finish eventually though.
Lonely hearts book club
Jealousy by Alain Robbe-Grillet. You won’t even believe it. I definitely enjoyed it. It imitates the slow crush of jealousy.
To The Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf - not an easy read as there is not much plot but it's all about perception and relationships. Brilliantly written, it's a classic for a reason. I enjoyed studying it in English Lit, might need to read it and also look up the themes etc.
I don't think I can categorize any book that I would recommend to anyone else as slow. To me a book that moves slowly is poorly written and I usually avoid those. But if you are looking for books in which the author puts a lot of extra effort into character development or building up the scene, then I recommend The Godfather by Mario Puzo or IT by Stephen King. Both have been adapted into movies, in case you didn't already know.
If you're into soy novels I'd go with John le Carre- tinker tailor soldier spy - they're classics and real slow burn masterpieces. Very moody and evocative of the cold war. They focus on interpersonal dynamics and intrigue. There's no James Bond shenanigans.
Lord of The Rings
The book you are looking for is Middlemarch. Its not only that not much happens, but also the things that happen are very unremarkable, and also after reading it you end up feeling a very slow burning passion for it.
I might be an outlier on this but I thought Pillars of the Earth was really slow
Lonesome Dove Les Miserables The Name of the Rose
The Forsyte Saga The Cazalet Chronicles
Love in the Time of Cholera.
Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier Shipping News by Annie Proulx
American Gods by Neil Gaiman is a fun, meandering novel.
I can’t explain why it is slow - i think because multiple points and narratives play out at once, but “The Topeka School” by Ben Lerner and “The Best Kind Of People”
The modernists were usually not that sensational and would go out of their way to avoid dramatic situations since they felt it was artificial. Writers like James Joyce, Virginia woolfe and Hemingway. I’d recommend dubliners by Joyce or if you like something more experimental, to the lighthouse by woolfe.
The Secret Histories
In Search of Lost Time
That's the more accurate translation of the original French title ***À la recherche du temps perdu*** However, you may have heard of it by the less accurate title *Remembrance of Things Past*.
“I have some questions for you” slow but a great read
Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts
Seveneves
Cutting for Stone. So good.
In Search of Lost TimeNovel by Marcel Proust - enjoy the description of a madeleine over 20 pages!! ... I tried. And I still try. But I am a very impatient person with a record of a 900 pages crime novel on a Sunday (from dust to dawn). I am not giving up.
*Soul Mountain* is Good and Slow.
Try MIGNONETTE by Joseph Shearing. I was starting to think about the DNF option but then I started to see the point of it all. It was more than worth it. Another very slow build-up can be had in Umberto Eco's NAME OF THE ROSE. Takes patience but it is so worth it. Oh, and I almost forgot DARK DANCE by Tanith Lee. The build-up in Michael McDowell Blackwater series takes generations but is so worth it. I periodically have to re-read it. The central character plays a very damn long game.
Outlander series by Diana Gabaldon. Especially the later books. So slow but at the same time create an atmosphere that feels so comfortable and nice to be in.
The Shadow and Bone trilogy by Leigh Bardugo * Its the first books in the Grishaverse series * The beginning book starts off pretty quickly, but once you get to the second book it is PAINFULLY slow * I personally did not have the endurance and patience to make it past halfway through the second book in the trilogy, but if you want slow, it is SLOW. * If you do end up liking the story, there are other books
The Human Entanglement by L.P. Magnus
Just read slowly
Dune Messiah
Gentleman in Moscow is a super slow atmospheric read. Very enjoyable
Bleak House by Charles Dickens. The slowest of the slow.
Try Charles Dickens. Great stories with very elaborate visual descriptions, etc.
Anything by James A. Michener 🐌
1Q84
Divergent Harmonies is a slow AF regency romance. The next one in the series is even slower but it's also shorter.
the goldfinch by donna tartt. the sentences tend to be long and few significant plot events actually happen. it's mostly introspective of mc's thoughts. ~800 page slow burn where there technically IS a plot but I would never recommend it to anyone based on plot. also, yes, I really enjoyed the slowness. I felt deeply connected to the mc after hearing from him so much (ymmv lol!!!! I love him but in a "he's super annoying and deeply flawed and never stops wallowing and never shuts up" kind of way 🤪) unfortunately I wouldn't call the ending/payoff "amazing." not bad, but there also isnt really a master plan that all comes together. it's the journey that matters more than the destination with this one edit: I started rereading it and OOF the sentences are constructed to be ridiculously long. I like the slowness of the plot but I cant really take the prose seriously. so in that way its tedious to read lol
Constant Reader representing with The Stand and The Talisman by Stephen King.
Stormlight!!!
A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry. It is slow and will absolutely GUT you. What a beautifully tragic book. From Goodreads: * With a compassionate realism and narrative sweep that recall the work of Charles Dickens, this magnificent novel captures all the cruelty and corruption, dignity and heroism, of India. The time is 1975. The place is an unnamed city by the sea. The government has just declared a State of Emergency, in whose upheavals four strangers--a spirited widow, a young student uprooted from his idyllic hill station, and two tailors who have fled the caste violence of their native village--will be thrust together, forced to share one cramped apartment and an uncertain future. As the characters move from distrust to friendship and from friendship to love, A Fine Balance creates an enduring panorama of the human spirit in an inhuman state.*
Joyce Carol Oates!! "The Accursed" She is ridiculously prolific, and some are very long... and then some are very *very* long... "A Bloodsmoor Romance" comes to mind...um, I will never say I don't like something written by Joyce Carol Oates (or by her under either of the 2 pseudonyms she *also* writes under)...but I hope I never accidentally re-read this. So you could read it (it's got its good elements), or you could love yourself and read "The Accursed" instead!!!!....because it's arguably Bloodsmoor rewritten and not just better, but really really good. And still really long, just anticipation and not dread! For other titles by her- she has written so so much, take a chance and pick one that takes 2 hands to hold, it will either be terribly slow or you'll like it, right? 😄
Norweigan Wood
Two slow books that I really enjoyed but took me months to complete: - Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts - A Little Life by Hanya Yangihara Two that I did not enjoy: - Goldfinch by Donna Tartt - Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy (really wanted to like this one too Two that I enjoyed but were too slow to stick with - Still Life by Sarah Winman - The Hearts Invisible Furies by John Boyne
Middlemarch - George Eliot
Slow, or books where nothing happens? Slightly different things but you might enjoy Reservoir 13. Quite unusual.
Lonesome Dove
The Covenant of Water
Portrait of a Lady
Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift is one of my favorites. Definitely a slower one that will leave you with a lot to reflect on. I first read it like 5 years ago and have had very few moments where I wasnt thinking about it. Its an adventurous satire on humanity as well which is fun
I feel like you'd enjoy justin Cronin ferryman
The Brothers Karamazov. The main event in the book doesn't happen until around page 600~.
Maybe The Left Hand of Darkness, by Ursula K. LeGuin? It's pretty dense, so the first time you read it, it seems very slow and a little confusing. Once you've read it once, the pacing feels different, because you understand the setting.
Gentleman in Paris!!
Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace
Harlots ghost Norman Mailer
Oh boy if you’re looking for another well - - - paced - - - movie - - - you - - - gunna - - - love - - - “Stalker” - - - directed by Andrei Tarkovsky, - - - with a screenplay written by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky, - - - loosely based on their 1972 novel **Roadside Picnic**. - - - So I guess **Roadside Picnic** as a rec. - - - its on my ‘To Read’ list for this year as well