Anonymous
Post 08/28/2023 11:39     Subject: Best longish book that is worth the time
Anonymous wrote:My unpopular opinion: The Goldfinch


I loved The Goldfinch
Anonymous
Post 08/28/2023 11:34     Subject: Re:Best longish book that is worth the time
Anonymous wrote:Anyone read Dom DeLillo's Underworld?

Tempted, but its negative reviews are off-putting


I really liked it, but I read it when it was newly released and I was young and a huge DeLillo fan. Not sure I could tackle it again 25 years later.

Anonymous
Post 08/28/2023 03:21     Subject: Best longish book that is worth the time
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 fast forwarded and skipped a bunch. The ending was good. I just couldn't.



Bleak, dark, rambling. I sooo wanted it to end. Wouldn’t recommend. I think she took real license and painted a dramatized and overstated version of that part of the world.
Anonymous
Post 08/28/2023 03:19     Subject: Best longish book that is worth the time
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:My unpopular opinion: The Goldfinch


Goldfinch was great! Not as long as some of the others listed, but loved it.


I’m PP and I loved it too![/quote

Nope. I wanted the time back after I read it.
Anonymous
Post 08/28/2023 01:23     Subject: Best longish book that is worth the time
Agree with
Pachinko
Cutting for Stone
Collapse

And add
The Omnivore's Dilemma
Anonymous
Post 08/27/2023 14:24     Subject: Re:Best longish book that is worth the time
Anyone read Dom DeLillo's Underworld?

Tempted, but its negative reviews are off-putting
Anonymous
Post 08/27/2023 12:12     Subject: Best longish book that is worth the time
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:I think it clocks in at more than a 1000 pages, but Infinite Jest is worth it. Spectacular writing. But it's a difficult book. Your brain will be working.

Not worth it. I feel sorry for people who are in denial about how bad it is that they have to convince themselves it was a great work.


Ha! Totally. I read that back in 1999 or 2000. Such pretentious self conscious ramblings

The one-star goodreads reviews are more entertaining (and better written) than the book itself.

Infinite Jest is a symptom of something wrong in the literary world: is there nothing else out there with meaning people can find to adore? It's neither a work of genius, nor is it insightful. There are serious things wrong with this book. I think the bigger problem here is why anyone, anywhere, thinks this is brilliant. Somehow the advent of smarmy advertisement and sterile, banal corporate living over the past one hundred and fifty years has invaded our literature, and we think it's wonderful and genius and metaphorical... why? Because it is self-referential, because it's mocking us on a deep level? I thought good literature was something people could access (or at least should be able to), that ideas should be understandable, and should have real content. As many a wiser human being has pointed out, if it's not even mildly coherent, it's probably bogus.

Critics rave about this novel for many reasons, one of which I suppose is so they don't have to talk about the concrete and tremendous problems we are actually facing... God forbid literature should be anything more than a ridiculous competition between whose work is the most ground-breaking and incoherent. It shouldn't be a surprise, I guess, but it's depressing anyway. It was only a matter of time before our publishing companies started thinking something like this was a good idea.


Anonymous
Post 08/27/2023 02:00     Subject: Best longish book that is worth the time
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:I think it clocks in at more than a 1000 pages, but Infinite Jest is worth it. Spectacular writing. But it's a difficult book. Your brain will be working.

Not worth it. I feel sorry for people who are in denial about how bad it is that they have to convince themselves it was a great work.


Ha! Totally. I read that back in 1999 or 2000. Such pretentious self conscious ramblings
Anonymous
Post 08/26/2023 21:35     Subject: Best longish book that is worth the time
Anonymous wrote:I think it clocks in at more than a 1000 pages, but Infinite Jest is worth it. Spectacular writing. But it's a difficult book. Your brain will be working.

Not worth it. I feel sorry for people who are in denial about how bad it is that they have to convince themselves it was a great work.
Anonymous
Post 08/26/2023 20:27     Subject: Best longish book that is worth the time
Anonymous wrote:My unpopular opinion: The Goldfinch


I’m there with you. I’m surprised by how many people didn’t like this one.
Anonymous
Post 08/26/2023 20:25     Subject: Best longish book that is worth the time
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Ken Follet: The Pillars of the Earth


One of the few books I read every few years so good! Also just read Covenant of Water, which I really liked (seems to get mixed reviews on here). His first book, Cutting for Stone, was amazing. They’re both very well written



Also The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay and Lonesome Dove. Those are also absorbing, great books.
Anonymous
Post 08/26/2023 20:22     Subject: Best longish book that is worth the time
Anonymous wrote:Ken Follet: The Pillars of the Earth


One of the few books I read every few years so good! Also just read Covenant of Water, which I really liked (seems to get mixed reviews on here). His first book, Cutting for Stone, was amazing. They’re both very well written

Anonymous
Post 08/26/2023 15:17     Subject: Best longish book that is worth the time
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
Anonymous
Post 08/26/2023 15:03     Subject: Best longish book that is worth the time
I think it clocks in at more than a 1000 pages, but Infinite Jest is worth it. Spectacular writing. But it's a difficult book. Your brain will be working.
Anonymous
Post 08/26/2023 14:34     Subject: Best longish book that is worth the time
Anonymous wrote:some of these suggestions are really schlocky.


You ... are ... not wrong.