I'm in the middle of reading A World At War and would like to know more books on world history (though any large book is welcome, I'm also reading Shogun from James Clavell over the course of a while)
But like big books like 1000+ pages
Any big sets are welcome too
by TheGrimmAngel
23 Comments
Infinite Jest, David Foster Wallace
The Count of Monte Cristo, Alexandre Dumas
War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy
Les Misérables, Victor Hugo
1Q84, Haruki Murakami
The Books of Jacob, Olga Tokarczuk
Don Quixote, Miguel de Cervantes
2666, Roberto Bolaño
A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth. 1488 pages. Worth it.
Lonesome Dove
Nightingale
A man with no qualities by Robert Musil
If you like history with a narrative bent, look up James Holland and his books on WWII.
Pillars of earth
Also by Clavell, Noble House
*War and revolution* by Domenico Losurdo
Europe Central by William Vollman
1776 by David McCollough
Baroque Cycle trilogy by Neal Stephenson. Each book is 900+ pages long great historical fiction.
Pillars of the Earth by Follet.
Team of Rivals
Excellent to read a large survey, a sweeping vista like what Beevor paints. Very few people have the ability to pull off the gigantic picture of a global war.
If you want to do a much deeper historical dive, the historian David M. Glantz is pretty much the one of the most respected English language scholars on the Eastern Front. He was one of the first historians from the west to get access to the Soviet archives so he’s pretty much rewritten a lot of what we thought we knew. These ones are Stalingrad-centric, but he has others.
You do get a sense of the entire Eastern Front, but also individual Rattenkrieg in a basement!
Glantz, David M. *Before Stalingrad: Barbarossa, Hitler’s Invasion of Russia 1941.* Stroud: Tempus, 2003.
Glantz, David M., and Jonathan M. House. *Stalingrad.* Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2019.
Glantz, David M., and Jonathan M. House. *To the Gates of Stalingrad: Soviet-German Combat Operations, April–August 1942.* Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2009.
Glantz, David M., and Jonathan M. House. *Armageddon in Stalingrad: September–November 1942.* Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2009.
Glantz, David M., and Jonathan M. House. *Endgame at Stalingrad: Book One: November 1942.* Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2014.
Glantz, David M., and Jonathan M. House. *Endgame at Stalingrad: Book Two: December 1942–February 1943.* Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2014.
Glantz, David M. *After Stalingrad: The Red Army’s Winter Offensive, 1942–1943.* Solihull: Helion & Company, 2009.
The Decameron by Giovanni Boccaccio
Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid by Douglas Hofstadter (a little shorter than you asked, I would say ~800 pages, but will definitely keep your hungry mind engaged)
Imperial by William Vollman
Pachinko by Min Jin Lee
Thomas Pynchon: Against the Day/ Maxon &Dixon / Gravity’s Rainbown
The Power Broker by Caro is a hefty 1300 pages.
Almanac of the Dead by Leslie Marmon Silko
the ‘conqueror’ series by Conn Iggulden is 5 books about a semi fictional Genghis Khan. Idk how long each is but it’s a meaty conjoined story and I found it pretty interesting.
The Stand and IT, both by Stephen King
Executive Orders by Tom Clancy is also massive. If you read that, I’d recommend Debt of Honor, a large book itself, before. Executive Orders is a sequel to Debt of Honor.