Best longish book that is worth the time

[Anonymous]

Vince Lombardi biography "When Pride Still Mattered." Sure it's about football, but it's also about growing up Catholic in that era, having an alcoholic spouse, etc. A great read.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m reading Demon Copperhead. 600 hundred pages long and it is sagging. I want to quit! I can’t bare to read it anymore, I don’t care about Demon. Too much internal dialogue and not enough plot.

I loved that book and it didn’t feel long at all!

+1
Also loved Pachinko

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The USA Trilogy by Dos Passos
Agree with Anna Karenina and War and Peace
The Brothers Karamazov and The Idiot (ymmv re The Possessed)
Ulysses
The Golden Notebook
And if I’m counting the USA Trilogy as one, maybe it makes sense to count the Neapolitan Novels and the Martha Quest books as one

LOVED The USA Trilogy! Fantastic, three volumes, once started couldn’t put them down, engrossing and what a view to that time in history! They had wonderful little drawings throughout by Reginald Marsh that added to the way it all would have looked. He has parts called “The Camera Eye” or something, like Steinbeck did in Grapes of Wrath, but you can skip them.

My husband has read all of Dickens and his favorite is the very long Bleak House.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My unpopular opinion: The Goldfinch

I’m there with you. I’m surprised by how many people didn’t like this one.

Me. I hated it, and would have cut out whole storylines.

It needed editing.

[Anonymous]

Vanity Fair.

[Anonymous]

Steinbeck—East of Eden

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My unpopular opinion: The Goldfinch

I’m there with you. I’m surprised by how many people didn’t like this one.

Me. I hated it, and would have cut out whole storylines.

It needed editing.

I'm OP and have stayed quiet this whole time because I've enjoyed this thread taking off. Books like the Goldfinch (which I hated) is what made me ask the question.

[Anonymous]

Wanted to love The Goldfinch, but the whole middle section dragged too much for me.

I enjoyed Les Miserables when I rwad it ages ago.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I second Pachinko and if Demon feels like a slog try Poisonwood Bible also by Barbara Kingsolver. I loved both!

Pillars of the Earth is also a great rec.

Loved Poisonwood Bible.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The Love Songs of WEB Dubois
Roots

Yes to both!

Also East of Eden, Cane River, Pachinko

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Third.
Amazing book. All time favorite.

That was for pillars of the Earth.

Maybe I read it too young, but I felt like Pillars of the Earth would never end.

[Anonymous]

Any book by Abraham Verghese

Also any book by Bryce Courtenay (start with The Power of One)

[Anonymous]

Just finished Charm School by Nelson DeMille. Been meaning to read it forever and finally got around to it.

It's long but I'm glad I stuck it out.

[Anonymous]

I loved Blackout by Connie Willis and its "sequel" All Clear. All Clear is not so much a sequel as the second half of Blackout. The sheer length of the two novels combined made me think it was perfect for this thread.

The books are primarily set in London during WWII. Although both books are actually set in a future time when time travel is possible but is used only by academic historians at Oxford who go back in time for research purposes. The protagonists in these books go back in time to WWII, but only to observe the past, and not to change the future (a common theme in other time travel books). I loved both books.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Paul Auster’s 4321
Lonesome Dove
Gore Vidal’s Lincoln
Underworld
Tana French’s crime novels are longer than many. Also James Ellroy’s.
The Brothers K (the baseball novel. Haven’t read Dostoevsky)
We Are Not Ourselves
The Nix

+1 for Lonesome Dove. No, make that +100. That book is fantastic. The TV miniseries is amazing, too.