Reducing the page number starting point

It has come to my attention that some would like the BFB to be books of 500 pages or more rather than the 600 or more as it is at the moment. I would be very much in favour of this and would like comment from other group members with their thoughts on this.

In 2014, Ann-Marie began the first Big Fat Book thread and decided that the book size would be 600 pages or more.

I see the 600 page criteria as quite subjective, and suggest a 500 page book is still a large read, given that the average novel is maybe 250-300 pages.

This change would increase the number of books we can include on our totals, but that isn't the reason for it, more a recognition that 500 page books are big enough.

I'm interested to see what others think, if many of us want to keep it at 600 pages, I'm perfectly fine with that.

I have had quite a few books in which fell a few pages short of the 600 page limit, and would be happy with a lower limit. My impression is that the bigger books tend to be mostly in the fantasy genre, which I find a bit constricting.

I would also prefer a 500 page goal. I had several books that I spent a lot of time on and felt like "big books" that fell short of the 600 page limit. I maybe could have found an edition somewhere that was longer with page layout, but that seemed like too complicated for my tracking. These books were The Hunchback of Notre Dame, The Kellys and the O'Kellys by Trollope, and Crime and Punishment.

I would be fine with taking credit for 500-pagers - they're still tomes!

Of course acknowledging that the true Big Fat Book is over 1000 pages, in our count of 110 big books so far this year, 9 have been truly big !

>6 bryanoz:, Bryan I think it looks as if next year the starting point will be 500 pages and I have plenty of those to go at and I must have at least 15 of 1,000+ and need to get to them.

I do have a separate ticker for 500+ and one for 600+ books. So I would not mind to lower the pages to 500.

I would support the 500 page limit.

I'm good with the 500 page limit. As someone else said above, I've read quite a few that were between 500 - 600.

I'm new to the group this year, but I'm good with either. I do keep a list of my books over 500 - and I'm actually in another challenge that considers big books to be those over 450 (I'm not suggesting that - just saying that I keep track of those too.)

I am the same - I have had quite a few reads this year over 500 pages.