Recommend me an insanely long book

[Queen Michael]

I just finished a long book. I want a new long book. Do you have a new one for me to read?

Spoiler: Here is what I've read already

The Journey to the West
Miyamoto Musashi
The Lord of the Rings
It
The Stand
Crime and Punishment
The Count of Monte Cristo
In Search of Lost Time
Water Margin (also known as Outlaws of the Marsh)
The Ingenious Knight Don Quixote of La Mancha
The Divine Comedy

A couple of rules:
1. Don't diss anyone else's recommendation. I just want to find books that somebody else can vouch for; if I don't like it I can find that out for myself.

2. No fantasy. It doesn't interest me a bit, with very few exceptions. And absolutely no "I know you said that you don't like fantasy, but I think you'd like this one..." Ehehehe, I think I wouldn't. Thanks, but no thank you.

3. No series. What I want is a long book that offers a complete story in one novel.

 

[Ldude893]

Les Miserables. It's extremely thick and contains not only a complex plot and a multitude of characters, but is also sectioned by various exposition about certain political and social topics that often goes pages on end before returning to the plot.
It's also 1448 pages.

I just finished a long book. I want a new long book. Do you have a new one for me to read?

2. No fantasy.

Well, I guess Homestuck's out of the question (even though it's not even a novel.)

 

[Queen Michael]

Well, I guess Homestuck's out of the question, even though it's not even a novel.

Yeah, it is; but actually that's because I've already started reading it and I'm at the fourth act at the moment. Kind of late to recommend it.

 

[Eleuthera]

I still have Anna Karenina and War and Peace waiting for me in my bookcase, taunting me... but they're just too intimidating by sheer size alone...

 

[HoneyVision]

"Tale of Genji". Arguably the first novel ever written in history. Not the most exciting thing out there, but very rich in history and language.

 

[Axolotl]

Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace. It's one of the funniest books ever written, it's widely considered to be one of the great masterpieces of 20th century literature and if you're looking for something huge it's one of those novels you could club people to death with.

 

[Spinozaad]

The Man Without Qualities, by Robert Musil.

It's both a satire of early twentieth century Austria-Hungarian society, as well as a book about ideas. It is considered to be one of the greatest books ever written. Or well, it is widely considered to be the best German novel of the 20th century.

It's fun and thought provoking, also huge. So huge that Musil never finished it. If you can get an edition that includes all notes/drafts/try-outs Musil wrote, you'll clock in at over thousands of page. The published edition (i.e., the actual book) is 1200+ pages or something.

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

I still have Anna Karenina and War and Peace waiting for me in my bookcase, taunting me... but they're just too intimidating by sheer size alone...

As someone who has read War and Peace I can honestly say that at least 1/3 of the pages could be completely removed without at all affecting the story. That's actually one of the reasons that I really disliked the book, since it felt like it was long just for the sake of being long. Don't feel too bad if you don't get to it for a while, it's really not as great as lovers of Russian literature would want you to believe.

As for my recommendation, I quite enjoyed David Copperfield by Charles Dickens. I don't think it's quite as long as some of the other books in this thread, but it's still about 900 pages from what I remember (if you get the unabridged version).

 

[Sixcess]

The Count of Monte Cristo is very good. It has a few slow spells (perhaps inevitable in an 875 page book) but it also has some extremely gripping sequences.

 

[HoneyVision]

Oh and also "The Fountainhead" by Ayn Rand. Fantastic book, with so much to learn from.

 

[Quaxar]

Plato's The Republic. It's maybe not the longest book possible but believe me, it totally makes up for that with dry, endless talking. I still haven't gone beyond book 4, I think.
And of course you can always get yourself Churchill's History of the English Speaking Peoples if you can manage to find it for a reasonable price. Which might not be that easy, I understand there are no current reprints of the full unabridged 4 volume set.

 

[Queen Michael]

The Count of Monte Cristo is very good. It has a few slow spells (perhaps inevitable in an 875 page book) but it also has some extremely gripping sequences.

Already read it, but thanks for reminding me of it so that I could add it to the list.

 

[Eleuthera]

Plato's The Republic. It's maybe not the longest book possible but believe me, it totally makes up for that with dry, endless talking. I still haven't gone beyond book 4, I think.
And of course you can always get yourself Churchill's History of the English Speaking Peoples if you can manage to find it for a reasonable price. Which might not be that easy, I understand there are no current reprints of the full unabridged 4 volume set.

I've read the Republic and I didn't think it was too bad. I have however been trying to get through Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics since forever, and I keep getting stuck...

 

[Spambot 3000]

Try reading 'The Very Hungry Caterpillar', I mean, that's just unbelievable how much he ends up eating, you think he'd be satisfied after three whole meals but NO the greedy little shit just keeps on going.

 

[JoJo]

Les Miserables. It's extremely thick and contains not only a complex plot and a multitude of characters, but is also sectioned by various exposition about certain political and social topics that often goes pages on end before returning to the plot.
It's also 1448 pages.

I second this, I read Les Miserables last summer on my Kindle and it was surprisingly good, and very long. As an added bonus it's copyright has expired and so you can legally download it free from a number of sites such as Project Gutenburg.

 

[SckizoBoy]

3. No series. What I want is a long book that offers a complete story in one novel.

Huh... not sure how you'd classify it, if it could be a series, but I'd recommend Livy's Ab Urbe Condita, or at least all the extant books (they're less 'books' and more 'parts'), I-X & XXI-XLV plus the Periochae. Damned good read.

Other than that... if you can find a decent translation of it, I'd also recommend Water Margin, one of the Four Great Classical Novels. There's always Romance, but that one's a tad silly at times, while Tsui-woo-jun has better (written) action and more relatable story.

 

[Newtonyd]

Catch 22 is pretty damn long, isn't fantasy, and isn't a series. More importantly, I enjoyed it quite a lot.

 

[Legion]

Oh and also "The Fountainhead" by Ayn Rand. Fantastic book, with so much to learn from.

Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand is also a pretty long book. It even has a 50 page speech by a single character. The book isn't too bad overall, it makes some very good points, although it does paint objectivism in an almost saint-like light, and everything else is comically evil.

Try reading 'The Very Hungry Caterpillar', I mean, that's just unbelievable how much he ends up eating, you think he'd be satisfied after three whole meals but NO the greedy little shit just keeps on going.

Best. Response. Ever.

 

[LiberalSquirrel]

I'll second the recommendation I already saw for Les Miserables, and add on Romance of the Three Kingdoms. It's very, very long, and it's something that really should be experienced.

 

[DoPo]

I have a book for you - it's long, it's thick and it should last you for a while: the telephone book.

2. No fantasy.

It's not fantasy nor fiction, it's absolutely grounded in reality

3. No series.

Well, technically, there are lots of books in the series, however, each is standalone, so that shouldn't be a problem. Heck, in fact, it's a bonus, since you can pick up any you like - the biggest one, for example.

I hope I helped.