10 Of The Best Big Books

I can’t speak for anyone else but, personally, I love big books. Big, fat wristbreakers that can double as an emergency paperweight or doorstop. I just think that they’re usually a lot deeper than your average novel, their relationship to which is kind of similar to that of a TV series versus a feature film. The latter gives you a fairly easy-to-digest experience but the former will definitely have more time to make an impact on you and, by giving you more time with the characters, makes any plot twists more compelling and involving.

The following, therefore, is a list of ten of the best of these mammoth reads:

1. Marcel Proust, In Search of Time Lost: In many ways the original big book. This classic is almost invariably published in seven volumes, such is its girth. It took 13 years to write although if you’re disciplined it shouldn’t take that long to read this magnificent novel.

2. David Foster Wallace, Infinite Jest: My personal favourite book of all time, this is a postmodern classic first published in 1996 that deals simultaneously with the experiences of students at a Tennis Academy and occupants at a nearby drug recovery house all set against the backdrop of near-future blighted in which North America has formed a bizarre political union. While this book can be difficult for the first-time reader it rewards the patient with fantastic prose writing and incredible depth, with themes of addiction, entertainment and happiness explored among many others.

3. J.R.R Tolkein, The Lord of the Rings: The fantasy wristbreaker that started them all, LOTR is practically a rite of passage. While some of the prose is a little clunky its difficult to ignore the fact that this is a great adventure story painted on a very big canvass indeed and a lot deeper than is usually given credit for, dealing as it does with themes such as addiction and the ‘fall’ of man.

4. Cao Xueqin, Dream of the Red Chamber: Also known as ‘Dream of Red Mansions’ and ‘The Story of the Stone’, this 18^th century Chinese epic is little known in the West but is a staple of Chinese culture. The book is a semi-autobiographical study of the Chinese aristocracy in the 18^th Century and the downfall of one of these aristocratic families. The English reader should be careful to pick up a modern translation as some of the older editions are extremely difficult to read due to the literalist translation. David Hawkes’ translation is a good place to start.

5. Vikram Seth, A Suitable Girl: An epic Indian novel set against the backdrop of Indian independence, this novel nonetheless gives an intimate portrait of several families and is at its core a moving love story.

6. Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace: An strange hybrid of a novel that flits between vast storytelling and a specific exposition of Tolstoy’s philosophical views and views on the rise and fall of Napoleon. The novel sections are excellent and feature a huge cast of well-drawn characters. Newcomers may want to skip the philosophy sections though!

7. Robert Musil, A Man Without Qualities: Musil worked on this book for over twenty years and it was still uncompleted upon his death in 1942, despite the fact that he worked on it nearly every day! The book follows the main protagonist Ulrich in his search of a reason for living.

8. Peter F. Hamilton, The Commonwealth Saga: Actually a trilogy of three 1,000 page plus Sci-Fi doorstops, The Commonwealth Saga is a richly imaginative group of novels that explore the consequences of a random event which bring back the souls of the dead. While this set of books is marred by a literal deus ex machina ending, the process of reading it is great and well worth the effort.

9. Thomas Pynchon, Against the Day: With a timeline running between 1893 and the build-up to WW1, this huge novel is packed full of Pynchon’s literary hallmarks including a diverse array of characters, seemingly random plotting and a host of cameos from famous historical figures. While Pynchon is definitely an acquired taste, the quality of his prose more than rewards any patient reader.

10. Neal Stephenson, The Baroque Cycle: As with The Commonwealth Saga, this is actually a series of eight interconnected novels currently published as a trilogy. Each book easily approaches 1,000 pages of print and taken together they form a vast web of alternate history spanning across the 17^th and 18^th centuries.

This is far from an exhaustive list and could easily be expanded to include other works such as Tolstoy’s ‘Anna Karenina’ and Roberto Bolano’s ‘2666’. However, if you are looking for a great big read any of the above will definitely fit that bill!