Why Reading Long Books Is Good For You

The Hidden Benefits of the "Long Read"

Hello and welcome to Mature Content, a newsletter about lifelong learning, where I offer tools, insights, and resources for personal growth and discovery. This is the monthly installment of Good Tools, where I feature a strategy for learning something about yourself or the world around you.

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I’ve read my fair share of long books in my day: Doctor Zhivago, A Suitable Boy, and Infinite Jest all come to mind. (Come to think of it, the footnotes of Infinite Jest ought to constitute a long read all by themselves!)*

I normally set aside time to read longer books (which I define as anything over 500 pages) alongside much shorter fare. Last year, however, I did two long reads at once, alongside everything else. Over the course of 12 months, I completed Tolstoy’s epic novel about the Napoleonic Wars, War and Peace, as well Robert Caro’s seminal biography of Robert Moses, The Power Broker. Each of these bad boys clocks in at over 1000 pages.

It was an exhilarating experience. While I’m not sure I’ll ever try to do two long reads again simultaneously, I highly recommend doing at least one long read a year. Here’s why we should all be reading longer books, above and beyond their fantastic content:

Long Books Lengthen Your Attention Span

The first, possibly surprising, advantage to reading long books has to do with their effect on our attention spans. Spoiler alert! The digital age has decimated our attention spans! So if you’re someone who can’t sit through a one-hour meal without your phone pinging and would like to avoid my dirty look, it’s time to change your ways.

Lots of people have argued that reading is a great way to improve your concentration. But why longer books, in particular? Writing in The Guardian, Juliet Lapidos came up with one answer I found compelling. There’s a certain upfront investment we make when we start something new. So just as it’s easier to start watching the second season of a television series than it is to start watching an entirely new TV show, so too with books.

Bonus? Over time, the more you read, the more you train your brain to read for increasingly longer chunks of time. In other words, reading begets more reading. I’m not sure this adage has been scientifically proven, but it makes a lot of intuitive sense to me.

Long Books Present A Challenge

A second reason to read long books as they can serve as a form of challenge. In one of his weekly “How to Build a Life” columns for The Atlantic late last year, Arthur C. Brooks encourages us all to “go on an adventure.” The logic behind this exhortation is that human beings are hard-wired to take risks and push themselves. So we value tasks that require more effort than those that are easier to complete. We also feel happier.

Brooks clarified that by “adventure,” you don’t necessarily need to run a marathon on seven continents or sail around the world. An adventure can also be a mental exertion. As soon as he said that, I realized that I’d been on a mental adventure all throughout 2024, one that removed me from my comfort zone and immersed me in different worlds (18th century Russia; 20th century New York City politics). It took some serious energy and focus to go deep into those seemingly endless battle scenes in War and Peace. It was taxing, at times, to dwell on the byzantine details of a city planning bureaucracy in The Power Broker. Those deep reading experiences were also very rewarding.

We value tasks that require more effort than those that are easier to complete. They also make us happier.

Long Books are Social

A final benefit of long reads I’d like to insert into the mix is that they can be intensely social. Many of us talk about books after we’ve read them. Who doesn’t love a good book club? But if you choose to do your long read with others, it allows that interaction to happen continuously.

Readalongs have numerous advantages. First, they let you pace yourself so that you don’t try to tackle too much of the long book early on and give up from exhaustion. Second, group reading also enables accountability. Knowing where you’re supposed to be on any given week - and that others have the same deadline - motivates you to stay on track. Above all, you can test out what you think about a text with others in real time. You don’t have to wait for the book club meeting!

In the case of War and Peace, I joined

Simon Haisell

’s wonderful readalong here on Substack, which came replete with historical side bars, relevant visual material, and reward stickers when you hit the end of a Volume. Although I rarely made it onto the chat he created to accompany the reading of this novel, it was delightful to see what others were thinking when I did pop in to visit them there.

Ditto The Power Broker. For this book, I joined a podcast readalong over on 99% Invisible. The two hosts were phenomenal in their nerdy devotion to this book. They also featured special guests on each episode (including Caro himself!), each of whom brought a different lens to the topic of urban planning. A vibrant chat on Discord followed each episode.

I will confess that I’ve been very happy to spend the first few months of 2025 with no long books in my “to be read” pile. Once I’ve caught my breath, however, I’ve already made my next pick: James Joyce’s Ulysses. That book was already on my long list. Then I heard that

elizabeth graham madden

was doing a readalong here on Substack in the near future and I thought: strike while the iron is hot.

What’s your favorite long read?

*Could be worse. I have a friend who’s read Infinite Jest six times. Please let that sink in for a moment before you proceed with your day.