As I Lay Dying vs The Corrections: Which Should You Read?
Both live on shelves: Parent and adult child, Married women, Fiction
As I Lay Dying
Written in stream-of-consciousness style with multiple narrators, the story follows a journey wherein the family of a dead woman try to transport her body to her birthplace in Mississippi in accordance with her wishes.…
1 film adaptation
vs
The Corrections
“The Madness of an autumn prairie cold front coming through.”
Like bookends of the past half century, the two generations of the Lambert family represent two very different aspects of America. Alfred, the patriarch, is a distant, puritanical company man; he is also slipping into…
The verdict
- Ratings are close across the board — any is a safe pick by score.
- As I Lay Dying is the quickest read — about 4 hours vs 9 for The Corrections.
- The Corrections has the widest readership — 203188 ratings behind its score.
How to choose
Scores by source
| As I Lay Dying | The Corrections | |
|---|---|---|
| Goodreads | 3.7 (193649) | 3.9 (203188) |
| Hardcover | 3.7 (309) | 3.9 (278) |
| Google Books | — | 4.0 (47) |
| Apple Books | 4.0 (231) | 4.0 (881) |
Reception
| As I Lay Dying | The Corrections | |
|---|---|---|
| Ratings | 193649 | 203188 |
| Editions | 62 | 70 |
| Film adaptations | 1 | 1 |
| Want to read | 285152 | 164993 |
| Reading it now | 9257 | — |
| Written reviews | 14613 | 13622 |
| Wikipedia attention | 17736 | 8147 |
| Pages | 250 | 504 |