All of the Outlander books by Diana Gabaldon

Gone With the Wind - Margaret Mitchell (read at least three times)

The Thorn Birds - Colleen McCullough (also read at least three times)

And in the non-fiction category:

And the Sea Will Tell - Vincent Bugliosi (read it twice)

Helter Skelter - Vincent Bugliosi

Thanks for starting the thread!

Donna

PAM, I'm reminded of the lyrics in The Lovin' Spoonful's "Nashville Cats" when John Sebastian sings about records from Nashville: /Up north nobody buys them/. And then he adds: /But I will/. It might seem that no one wants to buy and read the long books, but I always want to say: But I will.

I've been thinking about this since you mentioned it in the other thread. I'm sure that I will continue coming up with many longer-than-500-pages books I've read and enjoyed, but here are a few off the top of my head:

Ahab's Wife - Sena Jeter Naslund

The Count of Monte Cristo - Dumas

The Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All - Allan Gurgannus

I already mentioned Anna Karenina in the other thread. Then of course there's GWTW.

I'm glad you included nonfiction, because NF doesn't seem to be favored as much as fiction. But I love:

The Brontes - Juliet Barker

The Horse, the Wheel, and Language - David W. Anthony

East of the Sun: The Epic Conquest and Tragic History of Siberia - Benson Bobrick

The Fatal Shore: The Epic of Australia's Founding - Robert Hughes

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Donna, I've read And the Sea Will Tell several times. The murders on Palmyra Island are among the most famous associated with Hawai'i. I got a chance to visit Palmyra Atoll (it's now a nature conservancy so permission has to be obtained). I thought it might be a spooky place because of its history, but I really didn't get that feeling. However, I did think about Mac and Muff Graham, as I think everyone would who knows of their unfortunate path-crossing with Buck Walker and Stephanie Stearns (Jennifer Jenkins in the book). I like the book very much.

Frieda, that's very cool that you got to visit Palmyra! I may just read the book again. :)

I've also read Confederate Widow and enjoyed it very much. I'm a sucker for anything about the Civil War.

Donna

Donna, have you read Raintree County by Ross Lockridge, Jr.? That's another longie, over 1000 pages as I recall. It is sometimes called the North's GWTW. I liked it when I read it years ago, but it does not seem to have had the sustained popularity of the southern classic (yeah, I think it's a classic).

Oh, PAM, I read Forever Amber (746 pages in my edition) again after many years while on my way to Samoa and back. It held up for me. Loved it and it was the perfect foil for all the water surrounding.

Frieda,

You have mentioned a few that I also enjoyed:

Anna Karenina, of course. My edition was 868 pages. And I cannot believe that I forgot to add The Count of Monte Cristo (my edition was 1365 pages). Thank you for filling that void. I thought The Count was so much better than The Three Musketeers.

Forever Amber stuck with me as well... for some reason, I still have (after 15+ years) that vision of a "tongue scraper" in my brain. Truly wish I did not. I enjoy a good sail, but cannot find it in me to do the trips that you've done. Unless of course, the crew worked the boat and I simply read in the sunshine.

In reviewing my records, I was startled to find that Lady's Maid by Margaret Forster was over 500 pages.

I think I own The Fatal Shore. Sounds very interesting, and if it makes your list, it is worth checking into.

Speaking of FORGETTING things, New Grub Street by George Gissing just peeks over 500+ pages and I MUST add that title to the very top of the list.

Did anyone read Anthony Adverse by Hervey Allen? (1285 pages) My grandmother said it was SOOOO risqué that she had to buy it with her own money and hide in her room to read it. She was 18 years old and felt very rebellious. She saved her copy for years and years. When I was 18, she gave it to me and said she "figured" I could handle it. As with most forms of entertainment, what was deemed risqué (and scandalous) when she was 18, seemed quaint and old-fashioned by the time I read it fifty years after she first opened the cover.

PAM

and Donna,

I have never heard of the Palmyra murders nor the atoll before reading this thread. After doing a wee bit of googling online, I think this is a book to present to my book club as a choice for our next read.

PAM

I have read a lot of James Michener's books. My favorites of his are Hawaii and Centennial. I adore the Cynthia Harrod-Eagles books in the Morland Dynasty series, and they are all long. As I am a Dickens fan, I've read all of his novels, and those of Diana Gabaldon. Long books suit me, so much so that I don't especially remember them by name, but I've read most of the fiction mentioned above.

The Count of Monte Cristo is the only book I ever had to recheck from my high school library. It was a small school with a small library, and as I recall we could only check out one book at a time and for one week only. I suppose we were meant to share the books as well as to be studying our textbooks . . .

. . . which reminds me of a small-niece story. She began third grade in a new community where my brother was high school principal and my sister-in-law was a junior high teacher. Julie's school had an open library plan, so she soon began to spend all her time there reading, consequently, getting pretty low marks on her first grading period report card. Since she was a very sharp student, SIL went haring off to see what was going on, and the teacher said she wasn't getting her lessons because of the open library program. SIL said she needed to get her lessons first, and the (young) teacher said, "But, we have open library." SIL said firmly, "Julie gets her lessons before she goes to the library." So the party ended, but it is exactly what I would done in the same case.

I only have one long book, "Vanity Fair" , nearly 800 pages in the Penguin English Library paperback edition with notes, which makes the whole book 814 pages. It is printed on thin paper, so is 3.5 cm or under 1.5" in depth and quite light to hold in bed!

I often dip into a chapter to 'watch' a favourite scene again. There are so many to choose from.

Trying not to repeat titles already mentioned, I'll add a few:

The Pillars of the Earth - Ken Follett

All the Light We Cannot See - Anthony Doerr

Several of the Harry Potter series

The Source - James Michener

Cutting for Stone - Abraham Verghese

Several of Edward Rutherfurd's books are bricks, including the two that I read and liked, Sarum: The Novel of England and Russka: The Novel of Russia.

Really, PAM, how could you forget New Grub Street? ;-)

I checked on The Odd Women, but it's a measly 432 pages.

PAM, I think I read at least part of Anthony Adverse, but I'm not sure about all. I love the anecdotes about how we readers acquire, happen onto, or are introduced to seminal books in our lives. What a gift your grandmother gave you and, of course, that makes it valuable. But were you just a bit letdown that it wasn't quite as risqué as it once was?

What's an open library plan, Carolyn? I was often sent to the library when I was in school to get me out of my teachers' hair. Of course that was about like punishing me by giving me ice cream.

Kathy, The Source is my personal favorite of Michener's books. I didn't realize it's over 500 pages.

Oh, Carolyn, every time you and Astrokath mention The Morland Dynasty by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles, I think I would like to read it. How many books are there? I think I counted about thirty. Every time, though, that I look to acquire them I run into the problem of finding all of how ever many there are. I take it that it's best to read them in order. As you know I am not a series-that-goes-on-forever reader, but maybe if I consider the Morland series as just one long book with logical breaks for reading something else, I might handle them well enough and actually enjoy them. Do you think that might be a good way?

I'm going through my bookshelves looking for the thickest books that I know I have liked. I found a few more:

Giants in the Earth: A Saga of the Prairie - Ole Edvart Rolvaag (560 pages)

The Sot-Weed Factor - John Barth (756 pages)

Life: A User's Manual - Georges Perec (661 pages) - This is an oddity for me, being an 'experimental' novel, but I find it strangely and compulsively readable.

I have the one-volume sets of Kristin Lavransdatter - Sigrid Undset (1168 pages) and The Balkan Trilogy - Olivia Manning (924 pages), if trilogies bound together count. I read them together with no breaks of more than a few hours.

Then there's Don Quixote (992 pages in my most recent edition -- I've had to replace it multiple times). I've been reading this continually since 1967. I probably don't go more than a month at a time without dipping into it.

I can add Leon Uris' The Exodus and Katherine Anne Porter's Ship of Fools to the list as well as Wallace Stegner's Angle of Repose.

I haven't read the Michener book, The Source but would enjoy it I think.

In the almost group you could add Pride and Prejudice, as it is just under 500 pages.

I read Anna Karenina many years ago in high school but don't remember much of it. I could add a lot of books to that category!

Frieda, there are 35 Morland books. After the first about 5, the story is pretty much continuous, so you could certainly read them that way.

Several of my favourites have already been mentioned, including The Source by Michener, Exodus by Uris (and I would add Mila 18), All the Light We Cannot See, and Gabaldon's works. We have been listening to another old favourite from the 70s, The Winds of War by Wouk, and are about to start the follow up War and Remembrance.

I also enjoyed Deborah Harkness's All Souls Trilogy, most of Sharon Penman's books, especially The Sunne in Splendour, and Lady of Hay by Barbara Erskine.

PAM, I'm not much into novel reading at the best of times and have often found in the past that the great big heavy varieties don't do it for me. I am inclined to wonder if the authors are paid by the number of words they write.

As I have never thought to count the number of pages in a book I just did a random check of the various copies I have in this room around me (I have books in almost every room in the house except the bathroom) I notice Roots by Alex Haley, London by Edward Rutherford, Anna Karenina, Gone With the Wind, David Copperfield and a host of non-fiction which I tend to 'dip' into rather than sit and read right through.

Carolyn, I too was going to ask what is an 'open library plan' and what is 'gets her lessons' . . .sorry to be so dense!

It must be great to go to a school where the library was available to all grades/years/pupils. Our school library was firmly 'off-limits' to everyone except the 6th Form ie. the top two years in the school and then only contained reference books and a copy of 'The Times'. Reading for pleasure was not something encouraged by the nuns.

Oh, I also loved Pillars of the Earth and its sequel World Without End. I've read both of them twice.

I read Forever Amber when I was late teens or young adult, and the reason I read it was because it had been banned in school libraries as too risqué. I don't remember being particularly shocked by it. LOL And I recently tried to read it again and couldn't get into it.

My sister read Roots in one sitting when it came out...she was on the wait list for it at the library for a while. So when she got her hands on it she went into her room and didn't come out till she was done.

Donna

Frieda, I believe you could get all the Morland books from Amazon. I agree with Kath that they are best read in order with gaps between; otherwise, you would lose your grip on reality and feel as if you were living in other centuries and refighting old wars.

Open library was an experiment that allowed children to go to the school library at will instead of remaining in their classrooms. And, Vee, "get her lessons" meant to do her classroom work rather than going off to read for pleasure.

You have all listed many books I didn't think to mention that I have loved. How could I have forgotten The Source and Ken Follett and Herman Wouk?

Thanks, Kath and Carolyn, for the advice re The Morland Dynasty. I was tempted to skip the books set in the 15th and 16th centuries because I am a bit weary of those times, as I think they are over-represented in historical fiction. But, on second thought, it probably makes more sense to start with The Founding since a foundation is probably necessary. I've ordered the first five and will see how they go. Then maybe I'll get around to the remaining thirty!

Hmm, I liked a couple of Follett's thrillers -- Eye of the Needle and The Key to Rebecca -- but I'm afraid Pillars of the Earth fell flat for me. People of the 12th century were probably just as lust riddled as people are today, but I am obviously not as fascinated with libidinous violence as Mr. Follett is. He could have stuck to the cathedral building and I would have been more appreciative. Thus I was not attracted enough to read World Without End. Just a matter of taste, I'm sure.

PAM, I read 1421, the Year China Discovered America, so I meant to ask you if you have read 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus by Charles C. Mann (541 pages)? This is the sort of thing that I can get lost in and before I know it 500+ pages have just flown by. I've reread Jared Diamond's Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed (608 pages) four times because I wish it was about four times as long!

Carolyn, that's what I thought an open library plan meant but I wanted to make sure. There have been some goofy experiments devised in the past forty to fifty years.

Harborrose, I have been robbed!

My hardcover copy of P&P is only 330 pages long and that includes some 14 pages of full plate illustrations! It is in a good size print and although published by Reader's Digest, is a complete text version. What have you got that I haven't? :-)

annpanagain, you obviously have been robbed. The more pages of this book, the better.

I should confess that although I have read P&P a number of times, I do not own a copy. I checked Amazon to see if it could possibly be 500+ which I doubted, but was interested to see this edition at 480 pages. I suspect the introduction, the preface and 1more pad the pages considerably. I say this wistfully, as I believe what I said: the more pages of this book, the better.

Pride and Prejudice (Hardcover Classics) Hardcover – October 27, 2009

by Jane Austen (Author), Vivien Jones (Editor, Introduction), Claire Lamont (Preface), & 1more

Product Details

• Series: Hardcover Classics
• Hardcover: 480 pages
• Publisher: Penguin Classics; Reprint edition (October 27, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0141040343
• ISBN-13: 978-0141040349
• Product Dimensions: 5.3 x 1.6 x 8.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars See all reviews (3,621 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #12,511 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #372 in Books > Romance > Historical > Regency
  • #454 in Books > Literature & Fiction > Classics

More pages are good but size matters!

My edition is 6.25 x 1.25 x 9.25 so that would account for fewer pages if there are other items included in the one you mention. I do think that I have the full text.

Mind you, I would be happy with a digest version of Vanity Fair. There is a lot of stuff I would cut out from that book! I skip parts and get to the more interesting chapters.

I can't believe no one's mentioned The Lord of the Rings. Yes, it's called a trilogy, but like Kristin Lavransdatter, it's really one novel. I mean, you can't pick up just volume 1 of either of them and stop there because there is no ending until you've read the whole thing.

Also, The Goldfinch, of course for a more recent one.

To my surprise, my copy of Emma is over 500 pages too. I have always thought that JA wrote quite average size novels. I suppose they were in several volumes when originally published?

Neither of the long books I have look like doorstoppers so they have been hiding away in bookcases rather than propping up doors!

Some of my favorites have already been mentioned, The Lord of the Rings, the longer Harry Potter books, Deborah Harkness's All Souls Trilogy. I'd add to that Elizabeth Kostova's The Historian (which we once discussed here - 642 pages), The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern (516 pages), an old favorite, The Eight, by Katherine Neville (624 pages), and Susanna Clarke's brilliant and amazingly foot-noted Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, which clocked in at 782 pages. I've made a stab at Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time books, but gave up after just two of them, which was still 1,500+ pages. I guess I like my fantasy-tinted books long, but not too long.

I also enjoyed The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach (512 pages), a book I never would have picked up if not for my book group. The Drifters is my entry in the James Michener Doorstop category. I read that book as a teenager and I've wanted to see the Festival of San Fermin ever since.

I'm sure I've read other long non-fiction, but the only one that comes to mind is Bill Bryson's A Short History of Nearly Everything (544 pages) which I thoroughly enjoyed but thought lost some steam towards the end.

I'm taking notes on other books from this thread -- thank you!

I can second several listed here:

"Kristin Lavransdatter" (the entire trilogy).

"Gone With The Wind"

"Giants in the Earth" (O.E. Rolvaag).

"All The Light We Cannot See" (Doerr).

Little Women (the classic).

And I will add "The Historian".

I am usually really averse to Scary Big Books (such as described in page count here), but every now and then, one slips past the goalie. I have loads of reads that are four hundred and something, but I seem to have an allergy to any counting 500 pages or more for the most part.

However, I can recommend a few really well written NF:

• "America's Women" by Gail Collins (women's history in the US - fascinating) -- 540 p
• "Sad, Mad, and Bad" by Lisa Appignanesi (NF about how women and mental illness have been seen over the years) -- 535 p
• The Endurance journals by Shackleton was one of the best reads I've ever had...

Fiction:

• "London Belongs to Me" - Norman Collins (F) -- 702 pages
• "Vanishing" - Gerard Woodward (F) -- 497 p
• "Wish You Were Here" - Stewart O'Nan (F) -- 517 endless never-ending pages
• "The Country Girls" trilogy (usually published in one vol) (F) -- 544 p*

* I have this in three individual volumes to prevent the freaking out associated with books of more than 1.5 inches in width. :-)

And luckily, I'm reading "David Copperfield" on-line so I had no idea about the really high page count!!...

Some of the ones I like have already been mentioned so I won't repeat them. A couple more are The Crystal Cave by Mary Stewart with a hair over 500 pages and The Far Pavillions by M M Kaye with 1135 pages.

Thank you all for sharing! So many of you have mentioned excellent books that I had not mentioned. The Historian, for example. Others, like Kristin Lavransdatter, I still want to read, have gone through the trouble to buy, and look at them every now and again as they wait patiently on my shelf.

Frieda, I have read Collapse and found it hard to put down. That book formed the basis for many side books into the societies mentioned therein. I have Guns, Germs, and Steel; see note in above paragraph re: books waiting patiently. As for 1491, I KNOW I read it. I remember bits of it, but cannot find it listed in my book journal. I have searched back to 2001 and found nothing. This is odd as I find a perverse sort of satisfaction logging a book into my journal. I also read Tony Horwitz's A Voyage Long and Strange (only 445 pages)which covers a bit of the same ground, but I do not believe I am confusing the two books.

annpan, your post made my laugh. You've been robbed! Love it!

I recently read the new Elizabeth George book. Most of her Lynley titles are doorstops. But I cannot truly put any of them on a "fan club" list. They were okay, some better than others, but nothing I truly remember, nothing that was thought-provoking. And this last one felt choppy, disconnected, and just plain "off".

PAM

As for Anthony Adverse, after the way my grandmother described it, I was truly expecting a thoroughly slinky, bodice-ripping romp. However, it was more of a fictional bio akin slightly to David Copperfield, I think. (forgive me... it's been many many years since I have read it.) I remember shutting the back cover thinking, "She had to hide THIS book?"

vee, my heart goes out to you as a schoolgirl. I can imagine the longing of knowing the library was there, of seeing 6th form kids who did not bother to use it and wishing so badly they would make a wee exception just for you.

Sarum and Russka are also my favorite Edward Rutherfurd books. As for Michener, I really enjoyed Chesapeake (about Maryland's Eastern Shore) and Hawaii.

PAM

Lemonhead, I had to look up the Shackelton book you mentioned. I've read Alfred Lansing's book but did not know about a book written by Shackleton himself. Thanks for mentioning it.

Plenty of beloved books on this thread. I would add Lonesome Dove and the mother of all doorstops, A Suitable Boy.

Oh gosh yes - Lonesome Dove!

Earlier today I saw something in Reader's Digest that made me think of this thread. Stephen Colbert is quoted as saying "Now, for my younger viewers out there, a book is something we used to have before the Internet. It's sort of a blog for people with attention spans."

http://www.ebay.com/itm/-/291628274972? Leather 1976 Collector Edition for sale. Has been read many times. Other collector items with the auction. The auction starts at $52. This could be an awesome gift!

I was just reminded of this book when I used it in the December game thread:
I Know This Much is True by Wally Lamb.