fiction, please, preferably in audio. literary fiction? i dunno, i’m not averse to a genuinely great scifi or mystery, but so few actually fit that bill. (they can be great or they can be long, but in my experience only Iain Banks does both, and Dennis LeHane. i’ll be exceedingly jazzed to be proved wrong.)
here’s some books of the length and complexity i’m looking for which i’ve loved:
* most of the classics. please don’t recommend those, i’ve probably read it.
* *Sacred Games* by Vikram Chandra
* *The Crimson Petal and the White* by Michel Faber
* *An Unnecessary Woman* by Rabih Alameddine
* *The Library at Mount Char* by Scott Hawkins (and drat the man, i wish he’d write another)
* *A Place of Greater Safety* by Hilary Mantel (and oh crap i didn’t know she’d died… what a loss)
* Everything else by Hilary Mantel
* *Beautiful Ruins* and everything else by Jess Walter
books that get recommended all the time that i’m just not interested in:
* Lonesome Dove
* anything by Cormac McCarthy
* the Dungeon Crawler Carl series
* Murderbot
* Andy Weir’s works
* Fantasy and romance in general
apologies for pickiness. i would so love to dive into a new, long read. thanks!
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by former_human
18 Comments
Torth Majority.
Noumenon.
A Deepness in the Sky.
*The Unconsoled* by Kazuo Ishiguro
*White Teeth* by Zadie Smith
The Overstory by Richard Powers
The Wind Up Bird Chronicle by Murakami is a nice fat one.
2666 by Roberto Bolaño. Pretty thick.
The pillars of the earth by Ken follett
The Stand-Stephen King. Around 1100 pages, or 40 hours on Audible.
The Terror
The Count of Monte Cristo
New York by Edward Rutherford was really interesting on audio.
Anathem by Neal Stevenson.
He’s a super polarizing author so if it’s not your thing that’s all there is too it. Anathem takes place on Arb, where the Consent (read: basically a convent and university mashed together) of Fraa Edhar (super important science monk guy from a long ass time ago) (also I listened to the audiobook so no one correct my spelling) have noticed something in the sky. Right after they notice it, a bunch of inquisitors descend on the consent and shut down their observatory and start asking a bunch of questions about who knows about the object.
It is full of these…just…hyperspecific conversations between these knowledge hoarding monks about reality, and the multiverse, and I think listening to the audiobook makes it easier to get through those. They were easy enough to follow at least alittle bit for me, but there will be long parts that are like “what does this have to do with anything?” That being said, I adore this book, and I enjoy it immensely, I think it’s a fascinating story and pretty unlike anything else I’ve ever read, but since I listened to it, I can’t really speak to the experience of reading it. I know I didn’t do a super god job of selling it here but holy hell…it’s a good book. I can just very mich understand why people might not like it too much, and I get it, but I do feel a bit sorry for those people.
Edit: read your post again and I think this may be exactly the type of thing you are looking for.
Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts
A Little Life by Hana Yanagihara
Underworld by Don DeLillo
A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth
Cloud Cuckoo Land
I’ve heard great things about The Eighth Life by Nino Haratischwili. It is currently sitting on my shelf and it is MASSIVE. I haven’t been brave enough to tackle it yet.
The Luminaries – Eleanor Catton
The Wizard of the Crow – Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o
Red Earth and Pouring Rain – Vikram Chandra
Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell. Read by 7 different, excellent readers for each pov. Unbelievable!
All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr
The complete works of Sherlock Holmes if you haven’t read it and are up for short stories. It’s a big tome all together!
Shogun