A Matter of Reading Choice: 10 "Recommended" Long Novels Maybe Worth Considering Your Reading Time

Some of us loved to read " soap opera" novels, and others maybe a "slim-sized" or a "fast-paced" novels. Readers with a lot of stamina, perserverance,patience and a good "appetite" for reading will enjoy these 10 recommended "long" novels, just go to this website to find out, http://stevexs.tripod.com/books/long.html

Interesting timing for this posting because of the new War and Peace releases. NPR had a piece on the husband-and-wife team translation Monday. It's been more than 20 years since I read this and I don't know if I'm up to it again. One neat thing about repeat readings is what you learn about how much you've changed between readings. I'm pretty sure I'd have to set aside a month. If I do, I'll start a thread; that may inspire me to keep at it every day.

What about Tristram Shandy and Moby Dick?

I find it interesting that they put It and The Bothers Karamazov on the same list. Was length the only qualifier for this list?

I LOVE long novels. I am intrigued by books that are over a couple inches thick.
I do know that this is not often the case with many readers. I worked as a bookseller for several years and I often heard people dismiss a book because it was to "fat" or had "too many words".
However, I am not a fan of the classics....I haven't read that many of them and the ones I have seem dry or flat. This is my personal opinion. I find that there are enough new "hefty" novels to read. (I did read "It" by King when I was in my "King" stage)

P.S. In answer to message #4

Like it or not, I believe that Stephen King will some day grace the "classic" shelves of the future. Though I am surprised that they chose "It".......I would have chosen "The Stand".

I read King's early novels as soon as they were released. Thirty years later......my son reads everything King has written. Mr. King has a unique style and his books have staying power. Whether or not his writing warrents the same merit as what we now consider the classics is hard to say, but I believe he will pass the test of time.

I think too that we often put King into a slot and dismiss some of his greatest........Shawshank Redemtion, Stand by Me and The Walking Man were all King stories.

I have nothing agaist Stephen King! It was not one of his best beeks though.

Oh, I agree with you. Pehaps it was chosen because it was one of the longest ? Like I said, I would have chosen "The Stand" Of all King's novels I think perhaps this one has the most meaning.

I do read long novels, and I can't believe I've only read one in this list! (Les Miserables).

That list of long books and no John Irving...hmph
edited for fat fingers

JR and The recognitions by William Gaddis are both big books that are worth the read ... and, IMHO, so is Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace.

I agree with you, facebook! The Stand over It on a "best" list any day.

My vote for a long novel is Paul Scott's The Raj Quartet, which is in four volumes. It deals with the end of British rule in India, including the partition. It was made into 14-part TV drama on Granada TV.

I love long novels too, the longer the better. I hate finishing books and having to leave that world that I was immersed in...
My additions to the list of long books of the 20th century would be:
1. A suitable boy Vikram Seth
2. The Sea of Fertility Yukio Mishima
3. The Sleepwalkers Herman Broch
4. The Alexandrai Quartet Lawrence Durrell
5. Life and Fate Grossman
6. Europe Central Vollman

oh and these:
The Balkan Trilogy Olivia Manning
Earthly Powers Anthony Burgess
Underworld Don DeLillo

A schoolfriend bought me A Glastonbury Romance by John Cowper Powys, simply because it was the only novel he could find in the bookshop that was thicker than The Lord of the Rings! I haven't succeeded in getting through it yet, though I did manage the similarly weighty Kristin Lavransdatter.

Where is Gone with the Wind? I believe it is at least 1000 pages -- its not Proust or Tolstoy but it is a sight better than It for God's sake.

The longest novel I've read recently, is a book titled Shantarm by Gregory Davis Roberts

A big book about a big country.....India. Excellent book by the way !

S/B Shantaram.......no wonder the touchstones didn't work :>o

Faceinbook:

I agree with you. Epic novels are wonderful. There is something all-enveloping about a long book. It allows you to get more 'involved' in the world the author created.

I also agree that The Stand is superior to It, particularly regarding the end and falling action, which can ruin an otherwise great book.

Brothers K. is one on the list that I really recommend.

Not on the list, Cryptonimicon by Neal Stephenson, in my copy just under 1000 pages. Stephenson's other doorstops were not as well receieved, so I avoided them.

More and more I've been thinking about Proust, but that would be a huge commitment.

There are many reasons to like an epic tale, a good long, heavy, thick book. There was a time when I couldn't afford to actually buy any books other than those I could find at a Goodwill store (these were not always the literary novels I was looking for) We lived in a very rural area and had no public library close to home. My kids saved up their money (they were both teenagers with jobs) and gave me a gift certificate for Walden's Bookstore)
I spent a good long while searching the shelves for the thickest book with the smallest words. I had to get my money's worth.......it had to last a while :>)

I picked The Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All by Allan Gurganus An excellent book by the way ! ( I still have the remainder of the gift card tucked in the book)

Why are all these books so old?
I think Lord of the Rings should be there, even though I didn't like it.
And where's Otherland? His Dark Materials? I know they are "officially" 3 or 4 books, but who cares? They're one story.

Proust's are something along the lines of 6 (or is it 7?) books, but are usually counted as one.

I love long books to and in college would choose books off the shelf based on thickness. Like MyopicBookWorm I couldn't finish A Glastonbury Romance and abandoned after a couple hundred pages. Jean Christophe was another fat book I started and abandoned.

>23 wester: Yes, I agree that some fantasy blockbusters are actually single stories (like Lord of the Rings), and count as "thick" novels. I enjoyed Otherland and Memory, Sorrow and Thorn. But some authors stretch the boundary of what can be considered a single novel: I think Robert Jordan's The Wheel of Time is so sprawling that I'd be inclined to say it isn't a "novel" at all: it's a series of books, each of which fails to complete the story told in the previous one!

I have recently read Mann's The Magic Mountain which is about 800 pages and am currently reading Musil's A Man Without Qualities. This last one is a struggle at over 1000 dense pages, and I will be glad to return to shorter novels in about a month's time!

This is an excellent post and it's nice to find a really good long story to get lost in.

My recent long favorite is The Forsyte Saga by John Galsworthy. It was very readable and quite entertaining.