Washington Post: “‘You’re right. The book is long,’ I said. ‘But once you start this one, you won’t be able to put it down, right from that first page about the London fog.’ ‘I think I’ll watch the DVD,’ the student said.” (via Bookninja)

John Freeman: “The sentences run to typical Pynchonian length, and the typeface is alarmingly small. One can spend 20 hours of a weekend reading this book and barely make a dent.”

From David Markson’s This Is Not a Novel:

Harold Bloom’s claim to The New York Times that he could read at a rate of five hundred pages per hour.

Writer’s arse.

Spectacular exhibition! Right this way ladies and gentlemen! See Professor Bloom read the 1961 corrected and reset Random House edition of Ulysses in one hour and thirty-three minutes. Not one page stinted. Unforgettable!

Jessa Crispin opines that Peter Boxall’s list is well-balanced and makes efforts to get in touch with Boxall himself. For what it’s worth, I’ve only read 235. Lots of catching up to do.

William Grimes: “Reading becomes information processing. The sheer bliss of the childhood reading experience comes to seem like a lost Eden, recaptured only in thrilling fits and starts or when time, mercifully, stands still. Prison and vacation make good readers.”

Paul Collins on being asked to name five books everyone should have. (via Jenny D)