1.2 Million Words Later

Fun Trivia for Curious Readers Who Love Books

The Longest Novel Ever Written Was Meant to Be Read Like a Diary

You probably didn’t wake up this morning thinking, “I wonder what book holds the record for the longest novel ever written?” But now that it’s come up, aren’t you curious?

Here’s a little nugget of literary trivia that might just stick with you longer than your Wi-Fi password: In Search of Lost Time by Marcel Proust clocks in at over 1.2 million words. That’s more than the entire Harry Potter series — combined. And here’s the kicker: Proust didn’t write this behemoth just to show off. He wanted it to feel like you were reading a diary. Not his diary. Your own.

Yes, really.

Proust was fascinated with the way memory works — how it wanders, overlaps, skips around, and sometimes hides the most important things in the soft folds of the past. He believed reading wasn’t about learning something new but about rediscovering something you already knew deep down. Something hidden by the distractions of everyday life, like spilled coffee, Zoom calls, and whatever happened on last night’s reality TV finale.

He once said (and I promise this is a real quote), “The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.” And that’s what he hoped his…