Master of Memory: Accelerated learning, education, memorization - MMem 0518: Anti-trivia: The longest novels before 1980

Episode Date: March 2, 2016

This “anti-trivia” episode lists the best-selling songs of all time, as measured by sales of singles. We also go over the best-selling albums. What do you want to learn? Leave your question at http://MasterOfMemory.com/. Music credit: Maurice Ravel’s String Quartet, 2nd movement, performed by the US Army Band.

Master of Memory 518. Welcome to Master of Memory. I'm Timothy, and I'm here to answer your accelerated learning questions every day and to inspire and empower you to learn anything you want to learn faster than ever. Today's another anti-trivia episode. And this piece of trivia you might find actually pretty interesting and unique and maybe relevant to you and the culture around you. And this is something that I discovered not way too long ago and found it very interesting, Atlas Shrugged

is longer than War and Peace by a significant margin. So many people are forced to read one or the other, and lots of people talk about the fact that War and Peace is one of the longest novels ever written, but hey, Atlas Shrugged beats it. But where do these books really fall in the list of longest novels ever written? Or really, you know, let's stick with legitimate novels published by a mainstream publisher. In this episode, I'm going to list the top 10 books published by a mainstream publisher before 1980 that are the longest by word count. And the number one is actually a 17th century French book called Artamene or Cyrus the Great. So it's this French book from the 17th century, and it has nearly two million words. That is not

too far from doubling the number two result here. And the number two result is also French, but it was written in the 20th century, around 1920. It's called In Search of Lost Time, or that's the translated title. So 1.2 million words in that book. Next, we have a German book from 1970. It's called Settelstrahl, and it's a German book, 1.1 million words. Then we'll go back to the, actually the 18th century, and this is a book written in English. This is our first one on the list that's written in English, and it's another book with two titles. Clarissa, or The History of a Young Lady. So 1748, written in English. It or The History of a Young Lady. So 1748 written in English. It has

just shy of a million words. Next we have Poor Fellow, My Country, 1975. This one was also written in English, although this one is written by an Australian, and it has about 850,000 words. Next, another one in English, and this one's by an American, 1952. It's called Sironia, Texas, and there are about 840,000 words. Next, we're going really far back to the 14th century. This is a Chinese book called Romance of the Three Kingdoms. So written in Chinese, the 14th century. Then we have Miss Macintosh, My Darling, 1965. It's an English book by an American, and it has about 750,000 words. Next we have The History of Sir Charles Grandison, also in English,

and also about 750,000 words. This one was published, though, two centuries earlier in 1753. Then, of course, we have Les Mis, which was written in French. It's about 650,000 words, and it was written in 1862. What's interesting about that list is that neither Atlas Shrugged nor War and Peace are on that list, so Atlas Shrugged would be pretty much next. It has 645,000 words, and War and Peace are on that list. So Atlas Shrugged would be pretty much next. It has 645,000 words, and War and Peace is actually pretty far down after that with 585,000 words. Now some of you are probably protesting right now and saying, hey, I thought that this was supposed to be anti-trivia. What's really important about the longest book ever written? But again, the purpose of these episodes is to take a trivia fact like,

oh yeah, Atlas Shrugged is longer than War and Peace, and go, well, if you're going to talk about the longest book, it's not either of those. Those aren't even in the top 10. If you want to go by longest book before 1980, there are 10 other books that are longer than either of those. So we're at least zooming out a little bit and looking at something that you might argue is a little less trivial than that little fact. In tomorrow's episode, we'll be looking at drainage basins and what are the largest drainage basins in the world.

It's commonly known that the Amazon is the biggest river with the largest drainage basin in the world, but you might be surprised by some of these other rivers and drainage basins on the list. Meanwhile, what do you want to learn? The world's knowledge can be yours. Leave a learning request at masterofmemory.com slash question, and I'll talk to you again soon. © transcript Emily Beynon