Look at that shit. Look at it.

See those fuckers? They average about a thousand pages each. I'm doing them as audiobooks as I ride, which means they average about 50 hours. Each.

I was stoked to make it through the Renaissance, 'cuz it was 60 hours. Then I discovered that "The Reformation" was actually "The Renaissance everywhere that isn't Italy" which means I'm over 100 hours/1500 pages into "the Renaissance" and I'm not quite 2/3rds through.

I believe I'd be through the Harry Potter series twice through.

I know that all the Game of Thrones books so far are less than the first four books.

And I mean, I've read two Bill McKibben books, Paul Roberts' The End of Oil, Solaris for the 3rd time and a half dozen other books since starting these monsters but they are a constant presence in my life. They are the tallest matterhorn I have ever climbed. And they're full of pithy little insights but I'm here to tell you - 6000 pages into the history of civilization and what you learn is that civilization is anything but.

GRRM's Game of Thrones is, according to the Author, his version of the 100 Years War. Which is pretty much Book 5 of this series, and it's clear that Game of Thrones is this book. I mean, he even stole some of the titles. "A Feast for Crows" and "A Storm of Swords" are phrases coined by Durant. Here's another:

"From barbarism to civilization requires a century; from civilization to barbarism needs but a day."