Short content is considered a virtue these days. Younger generations are obsessed with short-form content like TikTok and YouTube Shorts. Even complex news is consumed in three-line summaries. The same goes for reading—thin books that can be finished quickly are popular.
Against this "short content" craze, novelist Jang Kang-myung has published "Read a Brick-Sized Book Once in Your Lifetime," a collection of columns introducing 100 brick-sized books he read over the past decade. He defines brick-sized books as those exceeding 700 pages.
"Brick-sized books offer experiences that thin books cannot provide," Jang emphasized in a phone interview with The Seoul Economic Daily on the 10th. Reading four 200-page books is an entirely different experience in terms of depth of thought compared to reading one 800-page book, he explained.
"Thin books often skip the thinking process and focus mainly on conclusions. But when an author presents new and challenging arguments, a substantial volume is necessary to capture the thought process that leads to those conclusions. Certain ideas simply require a corresponding amount of space," he said.
Jang stressed that brick-sized books can help develop the kind of thinking skills needed in the artificial intelligence era. "The ability to select and weave together the logic that AI produces to design large structures of thought has become important," he noted, adding that "schools don't teach this kind of thinking process."
He continued: "To develop comprehensive and complex thinking skills, you need to read books that show the journey from long-held questions through accumulated thoughts to final conclusions. Such books are quite likely to be brick-sized."
The author also advised that brick-sized books can help readers escape the algorithm-driven systems that narrow our thinking. Because brick-sized books are expensive and have fewer readers, they rarely appear on bookstore or social media recommendation lists.
"For 10 years, I visited libraries and randomly picked books that no one recommended—an old-fashioned way of reading," Jang confessed. "Through unfamiliar fields, unknown authors, and outdated debates, I realized that new story possibilities were emerging within me."
In an era where people barely read even short books, recommending brick-sized books to general readers is challenging. Most people struggle to turn pages due to the daunting length and difficult content. Still, Jang compares reading brick-sized books to running a marathon and encourages readers to take on the challenge boldly.
"A runner who completes a full marathon once loses their fear of running afterward. The same applies to brick-sized books. You may fail with some books, but once you successfully finish one, your standards for approaching text and your way of thinking will fundamentally change," he said.
For beginners looking to attempt their first brick-sized book, Jang recommended three titles: "Fingersmith" by Sarah Waters, "Five Days at Memorial" by Sheri Fink, and "The Splendid and the Vile" by Erik Larson. He described them as books with excellent storytelling and high immersion that make readers eager to keep turning pages.
Is there a special method for reading brick-sized books? "There isn't one," Jang said definitively, but added: "If you hit a difficult part, pause briefly and then push through following the order the author set. The significance of reading brick-sized books lies not in the conclusion but in the reading process itself."
