Nothin' to do but read

October 17, 2019 5:44 PM

What are your favorite looong books? 1200-1500 pages or so?

My daughter has time on her hands and limited space, and is looking for excellent, LONG books to read. Her favorite book of all time is The Master and Margarita, to give you an idea of what she likes. She's currently enjoying the excellent A Suitable Boy, and she's already read War and Peace. What else is long, and excellent, that she will like?

posted by pH Indicating Socks to Media & Arts (74 answers total)

What about The Complete Sherlock Holmes? I have a copy that clocks in at 1077 pages.
posted by Roger Pittman at 5:50 PM on October 17, 2019 [7 favorites]

It's (just) under 1k pages so non-compliant, but I'll still suggest it: 2666 by Bolaño. It's a wild ride.
posted by pilot pirx at 5:55 PM on October 17, 2019 [9 favorites]

A Soldier of the Great War by Mark Helprin
posted by sixswitch at 5:57 PM on October 17, 2019 [3 favorites]

Murakami has a certain kinship here with the magical realism. 1Q84 is about a thousand pages, though I generally recommend starting with Wild Sheep Chase, which is shorter but perhaps more broadly appealing.

The Stormlight Archive is a darling of modern fantasy circles, each clocks in at 1k pages or more.
posted by SaltySalticid at 5:58 PM on October 17, 2019 [4 favorites]

It’s a bit different but The Power Broker is hands down the best long book I’ve ever read.
posted by ferret branca at 5:58 PM on October 17, 2019 [14 favorites]

The Brothers Karamazov
The Power Broker
Infinite Jest
posted by caek at 5:59 PM on October 17, 2019 [5 favorites]

Lord of the Rings?
posted by McNulty at 6:00 PM on October 17, 2019 [6 favorites]

Allow me to recommend the delightful Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, particularly if she has any interest in regency England, magic, or the novels of Jane Austen.
posted by Alensin at 6:05 PM on October 17, 2019 [19 favorites]

Les Miserables, 1000%.
posted by lysimache at 6:11 PM on October 17, 2019 [12 favorites]

If she liked Bulgakov and Tolstoy, she will absolutely get into Vasily Grossman's Life and Fate.
posted by Fiasco da Gama at 6:13 PM on October 17, 2019 [3 favorites]

The Count of Monte Cristo
Les Misérables
Cecilia, by Fanny Burney, just misses your length cut, but it's small print and small margins compared to a lot of current publishing.

I haaaaaated Richardson's Clarissa, or, the History of a Young Lady, but it certainly is long enough and maybe she, like me, wants to be able to say she read the longest classic novel originally written in English.
posted by jocelmeow at 6:13 PM on October 17, 2019 [3 favorites]

I too love a good tome. I recently (on AskMe's recommendation) read The Quincunx by Charles Palliser. I also second Jonathan Strange and Mr Norell.
posted by soren_lorensen at 6:16 PM on October 17, 2019 [6 favorites]

Anthony Trollope's Palliser series is a connected series of six 400-700 page novels that take place over the course of the life of a politician and his unconventional wife in Victorian England (touching a huge ensemble of characters on the way). Some of my favorite novels ever—the length of the full cycle, and the very natural way in which characters show up as young people and appear again decades later in new roles, is part of what I love about it so much.

(I don't think I need to say this to someone whose preferred novel type is "enormous doorstop" [mine too], but give Can You Forgive Her at least until you meet the Pallisers, who are not the main characters of the first book. If you really want to spread this out, you can start with Trollope's Barsetshire novels, which are set in a different part of the same world and fill in some of Plantagenet Palliser's backstory that's only alluded to in the Palliser series. Thousands and thousands of pages of Trollope await—I wish I could read them all over again for the first time.)
posted by Polycarp at 6:25 PM on October 17, 2019 [5 favorites]

Shogun by James Clavell...1200 pages, and every time I’m sorry to see it end.
posted by vitout at 6:34 PM on October 17, 2019 [11 favorites]

The Children's Book by AS Byatt. It's a mere 900 pages about William Morris, the birth of the arts and crafts movement, an unconventional blended family, a children's book author, and family secrets. I'm considering re-reading it -- it has stayed with me for the past five years.
posted by mrfuga0 at 6:36 PM on October 17, 2019 [6 favorites]

Paolini's Inheritance Cycle, Asimov's Foundation series of books, the Complete Sherlock Holmes (already mentioned above), the "In Death" series of (dozens of books with continuity) by J.D.Robb and (this is a bit of a stretch) but "The Borrowed World" series by Franklin Horton (if she's not against reading dark future predictions).
posted by forthright at 6:39 PM on October 17, 2019 [1 favorite]

Seconding Shogun.

Non-fiction, Caro's The Years of Lyndon Johnson is extraordinary and totals 3,000 pages across four volumes (so far). The third and probably most famous (and perhaps best) volume, Master of the Senate, is about 1,200 pages. You can definitely read it without reading the prior two, though I certainly recommend starting at the start.
posted by Conrad Cornelius o'Donald o'Dell at 6:44 PM on October 17, 2019 [1 favorite]

I don't like Stephen King much, but I do like The Stand, at about 1100 pages in the unabridged hardcover.

How about Proust? The complete Remembrance of Things Past is way longer than required.

Neal Stephenson's complete Baroque Cycle should be plenty long as well, and is not science fiction.

Hearty upvotes for Shogun.
posted by lhauser at 6:51 PM on October 17, 2019 [8 favorites]

Shantaram is slightly garbagey but it’s a bit fun. It’s more in the 900 page range though. I am reminded of it because Hassan Minaj callee it his favorite book.

I like Infinite Jest, even if it’s out of favor these days.

Mating by Norman Rush, The Thornbirds, The Goldfinch: I think these are all 700-900pp.

Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan quartet would come out to ~1500 together.

I was bored by Proust. Les Mis is entertaining. Almost nothing is as good as Master and Margarita.
posted by vunder at 7:09 PM on October 17, 2019

I’d recommend The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton.
posted by jennyesq at 7:13 PM on October 17, 2019 [9 favorites]

The Crimson Petal and the White, by Michel Faber.

It's 1875, London. Sugar is a clever, enterprising prostitute who ends up in the circle of a soap company heir. The story is captivating (solid but quick at 928 pages) and the tone has this quality of amused bluntness not unlike that found the Master and Margarita.
posted by mochapickle at 7:23 PM on October 17, 2019 [5 favorites]

Middlemarch!
posted by peacheater at 7:31 PM on October 17, 2019 [13 favorites]

Vanity Fair is only around 700 pages, but it goes great with War and Peace.

If your daughter is in the mood for British people making bad choices during WW2, Fortunes of War: Balkan Trilogy followed by the Levant Trilogy should be around 1400 pages. Olivia Manning is one of those writers who is consistently underrated and sometimes rediscovered.
posted by betweenthebars at 7:45 PM on October 17, 2019 [1 favorite]

My favorite novels are all shorter than 1,200 pages...but in terms of nonfiction, I do like Gotham, a very long history of New York City.
posted by pinochiette at 7:46 PM on October 17, 2019 [1 favorite]

The entire Aubrey-Maturin series; I certainly read them as one looooooooong novel.

Braudel's history _Civilization and Capitalism_; the first chapter or two is slow, but once it gets out of prehistory into history it's full of delicious detail.

nth-ing recommendations for the Ferrante books and Trollope.
posted by clew at 7:49 PM on October 17, 2019 [1 favorite]

I came to recommend The Power Broker and was happy to see i was beaten to it.
posted by makonan at 7:52 PM on October 17, 2019 [2 favorites]

Neal Stephenson's Seveneves is very excellent. It is somewhere around the 1000 page mark but so very very good.
posted by cholly at 7:55 PM on October 17, 2019 [6 favorites]

If we're doing arc-style series, Anthony Powell's "A Dance to the Music of Time" (12 volumes) is fun. Sometimes you'll find it bound up as four tomes, each containing 3 books, named after the seasons. Best read the Wikipedia summary, which explains it better than I can. Each individual novel of the 12 is not super long, but it does make for 4 chunky volumes.
posted by zadcat at 8:08 PM on October 17, 2019 [5 favorites]

Oh yeah! The Stand is actually pretty good.
posted by Conrad Cornelius o'Donald o'Dell at 8:24 PM on October 17, 2019

Marjorie Morningstar is easy reading.
The Winds of War and its sequel, War and Remembrance.
The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich.
posted by Melismata at 8:32 PM on October 17, 2019

Gravity's Rainbow is only 800-ish pages long, but it's so dense and twisty that you might think it was 1500 pages long. I spent 1992 reading it, or trying to.

Don't let the synopsis scare you away; while it takes place during WWII, it's no Tom Clancy type garbage. Thomas Pynchon writes like no other.
posted by intermod at 8:50 PM on October 17, 2019 [3 favorites]

Came here to second Middlemarch. Also loved Vikram Chandra's Sacred Games (which is probably a bit shorter than 1000 pages), and if nonfiction is OK, Robert Caro's The Power Broker is the best political bio I've ever read (of Robert Moses, the man who ruled NYC through the parks department).
posted by rdn at 8:51 PM on October 17, 2019

Don Quixote looks to be just under 1000 pages, but get a large print edition and that should get you up into the correct range. :)
posted by If only I had a penguin... at 9:00 PM on October 17, 2019

The Hands of the Emperor by Victoria Goddard is the story of the personal secretary to an emperor, his work and his friendships. It's an epic bromance and the story of how one man decides to change the world, and succeeds. According to my Kindle, it's 970 pages long, and I enjoyed the heck out of it.
posted by mogget at 9:14 PM on October 17, 2019 [2 favorites]

+1 for Life and Fate by Grossman, but read his Stalingrad first, as that is actually chronologically the first half of the story.
posted by Atrahasis at 9:27 PM on October 17, 2019 [1 favorite]

Black Lamb and Grey Falcon by Rebecca West is non-fiction but it's long enough and still amazing.
"Written on the brink of World War II, Rebecca West's classic examination of the history, people, and politics of Yugoslavia illuminates a region that is still a focus of international concern."
posted by thatwhichfalls at 9:32 PM on October 17, 2019 [1 favorite]

The Story of the Stone! It’s easy to find cheap copies of the David Hawkes translation.
posted by mustard seeds at 10:07 PM on October 17, 2019 [1 favorite]

I know it’s not everyone’s favorite but I LOVED disappearing into War and Peace.
posted by Grandysaur at 10:38 PM on October 17, 2019

I absolutely love Infinite Jest (though it's fans have a bit of a bad rep). I'd suggest that she give some of his essays a try...if she gets his sense of humor and enjoys them, absolutely read Infinite Jest. I couldn't put it down, but I've found the people who didn't like it generally sort of didn't vibe with his sense of humor and general sensibility.

I feel this suggestion is super pretentious but...Proust. For non-Proust related reasons I've only read the first 3, but I found them gorgeous. Not page turners, but just...very evocative of a time and place and sensibility. It's quite unique and I think of those novels a lot now in my interactions with others. If she is interested in turn of the century French social circles, or has ever wondered "in post-revolutionary France what was the relationship of the aristocracy to the new burgeoisie" well have we got the book for you! And it's written beautifully to boot! As a pretty neurotic person, I will also say that Proust put into words some things I've felt deeply but never been able to describe about my relationships with others. Sometimes when trying to explain something in my mind I'm like "ugh if you had just read Swann's Way..."

Re: 2666, it's a great book, but there is a pretty intense section almost entirely about violence against women. Just a warning. It's a very interesting book though.

On my own personal "to read very soon" list are the 4 classic chinese novels (though I'm gearing up to read them in Chinese). Romance of the Three Kingdoms is an epic war story (which has heavily influenced Chinese media), Journey to the West is sort of a fantasy children's tale (which has heavily influenced Chinese mythology), Outlaws of the Marsh is sort of the first wuxia novel, a story about 108 heroes driven to revolution (the least read of the 4, but the one I'm most excited about!), and Dreams of the Read Chamber/Story of the Stone is probably considered the "best" of the 4 but also the most dense, as it outlines the intergenerational story of a family plugged into the imperial court. If there's a version with annotations I recommend that but if she's ever been interested in Chinese court life (I unironically am extremely interested in this!), this is the book for her (as an aside I'm suddenly seeing a parallel in my interest in Proust and desire to read Story of the Stone...)
posted by wooh at 11:35 PM on October 17, 2019 [4 favorites]

The Three Musketeers.
posted by TrishaU at 11:38 PM on October 17, 2019

Ducks, Newburyport by Lucy Ellman (nominated for this years booker)
Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurty (a Western you can disappear into, for non-fans of Westerns in general)
Nthing Middlemarch
posted by Balthamos at 11:43 PM on October 17, 2019

For some more non-fiction, David Kynaston's histories of postwar Britain: Austerity Britain, Family Britain, I think there's another one out now too; big fat extremely readable doorstops.
posted by huimangm at 11:54 PM on October 17, 2019 [2 favorites]

The Executioner's Song by Norman Mailer. Yeah, I know, Mailer. But it's a gripping read in two parts. The first part is about the life and crimes of Gary Gilmore, the first man to be executed in America after the death penalty was reintroduced in the mid-1970s. The second part is about the circus that grew up around the execution and how it affected the people involved. It comes in at just under 1,000 pages and it's the only book of that length I've read several times.
posted by essexjan at 11:57 PM on October 17, 2019 [1 favorite]

Ken Follet’s Pillars if the earth
posted by koahiatamadl at 12:01 AM on October 18, 2019 [1 favorite]

Hanya Yanagihara’s A little life is short, at 814 pages, but it was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, so should be good.
posted by EatMyHat at 1:00 AM on October 18, 2019

Another vote for Middlemarch, Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norell, Infinite Jest and Ferrante's Neapolitan novels.

Some of my favs:
The Betrothed, by Alessandro Manzoni.
House of Liars, by Elsa Morante.
The Magic Mountain, by Thomas Mann.
The Man without Qualities, by Robert Musil
The Waterfalls of Slunj, by Heimito von Doderer (one of my most problematic favs, for biographical reasons, not recommended without reservation. You really have to be very into a certain kind of aesthetic/prose style to look past these things, which I unfortunately am, but I suppose a lot of people are not.)
The Mandarins, by Simone de Beauvoir.
Like a Tear in the Ocean, by Manès Sperber
A Place of Greater Safety, by Hilary Mantel

On my own To-Read-List (because I also very much love doorstoppers and collect recommendations):
Miss MacIntosh, My Darling, by Marguerite Young
Kristin Lavransdatter, by Sigrid Unstet
The Golden Notebook, by Doris Lessing
The Last Samurai, by Helen DeWitt
Pilgrimage, by Dorothy Richardson
posted by sohalt at 1:32 AM on October 18, 2019 [4 favorites]

I will also say that Proust put into words some things I've felt deeply but never been able to describe about my relationships with others. Sometimes when trying to explain something in my mind I'm like "ugh if you had just read Swann's Way..."

Yep, that was my experience with Proust too. Nthing Proust!

Another recommendation: The Decameron!
posted by gakiko at 2:21 AM on October 18, 2019

Once and Future King, by T.S. White. I say this with the caveat that despite having read the first half about a dozen times, I have never finished the novel entirely, because my heart starts breaking and I go back to the beginning. It's about 700 pages usually, but you can get shorter and longer versions.
posted by dorothyisunderwood at 4:30 AM on October 18, 2019 [4 favorites]

Forever Amber, about 1000 pages of glorious, trashy romp through Restoration England. It was the bestselling AND most-banned English language book of the 1940s.

John Galsworthy's Forsyte Saga is spectacular and consists of 9 novels (and a couple short stories) generally sold in three-book omnibuses which run to about 1000 pages each. Worth it!

James Michener books usually clock in around 1200-1500 pages and they're enjoyable enough. (Plus easy to find used and then rerelease into the world.)

"... And the Ladies of the Club" which AskMe recommended to me and was VERY CORRECT!

Middlemarch is wonderful! And +1 for Les Miz.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 5:53 AM on October 18, 2019 [5 favorites]

I'm a doorstop fan myself and many of my recommendations on the more high-literary side have already been made. I'll add:

McCullough, the Masters of Rome series; seven thousand-page novels about the fall of the Republic. I'm midway through #3 right now and I'm not sure it's really great writing but it is gripping and very enjoyable and I'm learning a lot.

Wolfe, The Book of the New Sun: a four-book series totaling about a thousand pages regarded by many (including me) as the pinnacle of literary SF.

Vance, Lyonesse: three books also totaling about thousand pages; a charming and captivating fantasy-fairy-tale. Vance is one of my favorite writers, and if his style grabs you like it does me, a thousand pages won't be enough.
posted by dfan at 6:10 AM on October 18, 2019 [1 favorite]

The Tale of Genji, the first novel ever written in any language, is a massive doorstop. I once took a college course on both it and Story of the Stone/Dream of the Red Chamber and I was in superlongread hog heaven. (Though all the editions I've seen of Story of the Stone break it up over five volumes.)
posted by soren_lorensen at 6:15 AM on October 18, 2019 [2 favorites]

Even longer than Seveneves, also by Neal Stephenson, is The Baroque Cycle, a trilogy.
posted by Enid Lareg at 6:19 AM on October 18, 2019

O to be young and have good eyesight. The old 🐧 Penguin editions of classics had blue or orange spines and small print. You can carry more book in a smaller package if the print is smaller.

2nding The Hobbit & Lord of the Rings, the Stand, Middlemarch. Googling books you should have read or books over 1000 pages gets results.
posted by theora55 at 6:23 AM on October 18, 2019

Clocking in short as 720, but very engrossing, A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara.
posted by hepta at 6:37 AM on October 18, 2019

The Gormenghast trilogy by Mervyn Peake.
posted by jquinby at 6:41 AM on October 18, 2019 [6 favorites]

Combine Hilary Mantel's Wolfe Hall and Bring Up the Bodies, which are a part I and II, and you've got about that length.

Thomas Wolfe's Look Homeward, Angel is a masterpiece. Of Time and the River is the equally long sequel. Wolfe can spend thirty pages describing a train ride or a storm. Again, you'd need to combine the two to get the length you want.
posted by FencingGal at 6:46 AM on October 18, 2019 [2 favorites]

The Tin Drum by Günter Grass.
posted by BusyBusyBusy at 7:25 AM on October 18, 2019

As well as some of the above, I recently enjoyed Larry McMurtry’s Lonesome Dove which is 843 pages... and has two prequels and a sequel (which I haven’t read).

Given someone mentioned A Dance to the Music of Time, CP Snow’s Strangers and Brothers series is a quite similar sequence of eleven books telling the story of one man’s life over the 20th century.
posted by fabius at 8:31 AM on October 18, 2019 [1 favorite]

Bleak House, by Dickens, comes to mind. It's got a butt-ton of characters, all of whom are connected to one another by Jarndyce & Jarndyce, a dispute over conflicting wills that would distribute a massive fortune, but which has outlasted the original litigants, judges, and lawyers, and from which their descendants still hope to make a buck. It's not a legal story-- the courtroom stuff is largely absent to the plot, but it makes for a lot of greedy lawyers and sucker'd clients and so on. It's typically published at over 800 pages; I had a trade paperback fat enough to club a seal. I gather it's Dickens' longest book.

Seconding Les Mis and anything by Neal Stephenson. I'd've thought Anathem was his longest, but I'm unsure.
posted by Sunburnt at 9:26 AM on October 18, 2019 [1 favorite]

I spent a lonnng time plugging through The Brothers Karamazov last year and found it surprisingly rewarding.

East of Eden is another good one.

Les Mis: I'm reading this now! I am struggling a bit to be honest; there are parts that I fly through, and then other parts where I'm like, why have I been reading about the battle of Waterloo for ten chapters now.
posted by saramour at 10:21 AM on October 18, 2019

Deptford Trilogy by Robertson Davies is around 850 pages, second Gorgmenghast Triology.

I am just starting Outlander which is a long series with several Triology omnibus versions available.
posted by typecloud at 10:29 AM on October 18, 2019 [1 favorite]

Big Trouble, by Anthony Lukas. Non fiction. It’s about labor struggles in Idaho. Plus murder! I liked 1Q84 and Strange/Norell but could not finish 2666. Maybe NOS4A2?
posted by kerf at 11:28 AM on October 18, 2019

Nthing Clarke's Jonathan Strange and Mister Norrell, King's The Stand, Peake's Gormenghast, and Wolfe's The Book of the New Sun.

Adding Clive Barker's Imagica. You'll need to find older editions to get it in one volume. Newer editions are split into Book 1: The Fifth Dominion and Book 2: Reconciliation.
posted by Boxenmacher at 11:38 AM on October 18, 2019

I have not read it, but have always wanted to read the Kristin Lavransdatter series by Sigrid Undset.
posted by matildaben at 11:44 AM on October 18, 2019 [3 favorites]

I just read the new unabridged NYRB edition of Anniversaries by Uwe Johnson. It was extraordinary.
posted by thivaia at 1:14 PM on October 18, 2019

The full length unabridged David Copperfield comes in at about 1047 pages, a great deal more characters and sub plots that contribute to the main plots.
The collection The Art of Eating by M.F.K. Fisher comes in at 741 pages. It's 5 of her books on food, life, love, travel, and they flow nicely together as one large volume. I've worn out the first copy I acquired at a yard sale, and recently bought the 50th Anniversary edition, which is the one I'd recommend seeking out.
Adding more votes for Shogun, Jonathan Strange & Mister Norrell, The Stand. Happy reading!
posted by twentyfeetof tacos at 1:16 PM on October 18, 2019

I reread Wolf Hall and Bringing Up the Bodies a few weeks ago, and The Light and the Mirror will be coming out in 2020. It took a few times to get into Hilary Mantel's groove but once I did I was hooked. Her Thomas Cromwell is loyal to a fault, thrives on the edge of danger, and grinds revenge to a fine dust. I know what happens next -- I don't know how Mantel will spin it. But it will be good.
posted by TrishaU at 1:50 PM on October 18, 2019 [3 favorites]

M.M. Kaye's The Far Pavilions

Connie Willis' Blackout and All Clear. They were published as two separate books but she wrote it as one book.
posted by Constance Mirabella at 5:33 PM on October 18, 2019

Seconding (or thirding) 2666, with the content warnings.

I'm surprised no one has mentioned Anna Karenina! (although it's just under 1K pages)

If she does try Stephen King's The Stand I highly recommend NOT reading the unabridged version... there's some annoying plot changes that really pissed me off when I read it (years after reading the original), and it's overall more bloat-y. That man needs an editor, haha. It's not really in the same camp as Bulgakov though, so YMMV.
posted by Paper rabies at 7:37 PM on October 18, 2019

"The Worst Journey in the World" by Apsley Cherry-Garrard, a recounting of Scott's disastrous Antarctic expedition by one of the men on his team.
posted by kawelch at 5:16 AM on October 19, 2019 [1 favorite]

Seconding The Last Samurai (nothing to do with the movie at all) - it's really terrific.
posted by kristi at 1:17 PM on October 19, 2019

OK, this isn’t quite as long as what you’re looking for (it’s about 900 pages), but I really enjoyed 11/22/63 by Stephen King, and I’m not really a fan of his books.
posted by trillian at 7:55 AM on October 21, 2019

Second Ken Follett's Pillars... trilogy (not what it's called, but you'll figure it out). Absolute ball-tearers.
posted by turbid dahlia at 7:31 PM on October 24, 2019

Due to physical constraints, the ~3500 pages of Casanova's History of my life comes in 6 volumes in English, but I still consider it one book.

(I only read excerpts so far, but it is very good. If only I had the time to read it all!)
posted by kmt at 12:14 AM on October 31, 2019