What absolute doorstopper of a novel do you read all summer long? Looking for something so engrossing I'll start to miss vital work meetings but not really care.

Question

meg · Answer

The Sisters: It’s 600 pages, but you’ll fly through it.

Allison · Answer

The Bee Sting by Paul Murray.: Funny, heartbreaking and with twists you won’t see coming but will make perfect sense once revealed.

even*cleveland · Answer

The Raj Quartet by Paul Scott: Instead of one engrossing summer novel, how about four? (Five, if you count the coda, STAYING ON.) I spent a summer wholly immersed in Scott's books, which capture the unraveling of Britain's morally corrupt rule in India and the ghastly consequences of its ending in intense, unforgettable detail. As soon as I finished book three, I set it down, left the house, got in my car, and drove straight to the bookstore to buy book four (it took visiting a few, but I found it + called off work the next day to read). The publisher's blurb describes it as Tolstoyan, which fits—like WAR AND PEACE, Scott's story attempts to hold a whole, complex, incredibly messy geopolitical moment in time and its impacts on individual lives; I'd  throw in Elizabeth Jane Howard's Cazalets as a comp, too, because like those books, these are utterly propulsive reads (no Tolstoyan digressions on the nature of history or drawing room interludes in French to slow you down, ha).

Megan Liles · Answer

The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois: What about a sweeping multigenerational saga spanning 200 years so inventive that one of the characters is the actual literal land? Not your average pool read but one of the best books I’ve ever read. I think the page count prevents it from getting the attention it deserves.

Becca · Answer

Love in the Time of Cholera (Gabriel García Márquez): I first tried reading this at 22 and put it down after just a chapter or two. Picked it back up in my 30s and have read it 5 or more times since. It is epic.

Shannon · Answer

The Bee Sting: This was the last book I couldn’t put down. Story of a dysfunctional Irish family, both funny and heartbreaking. And that ending.

Cristina Sciarra · Answer

Great Circle | Maggie Shipstead: One of those books; grips you and doesn’t let go.

Laura Messersmith · Answer

Life After Life by Kate Atkinson: This book is astonishingly good - intriguing, beautifully written, poignant. Once it captured me I couldn’t put it down.

Petra · Answer

The Most Fun We Ever Had (Claire Lombardo): Fun read for summer

Laurel A · Answer

The Covenant of Water: A beautiful generational story set in southern India. His other book, Cutting for Stone, is also amazing!

Koorb · Answer

middlemarch: Middlemarch.  Perfection.

leela cyd · Answer

demon copperhead: One of the greatest stories ever told. Period.

J Gutz · Answer

shantaram: I had wanted to read this epic since for years and when I finally found it at a local coffee shops free library - I watched someone beat me to it, pick it up, and take it. She told me she’d bring it back here when she finished it. It’s 900+ pages. I hope she brought it back.

I got my own copy and loved it. Fantastic settings and compelling characters - some of it’s even true! warning - it’s a very white boy in Indian coded. But still a good immersive doorstop.

megan weisenberger · Answer

The Shell Seekers (Rosamunde Pilcher): feels like a big warm hug of a book

jmd · Answer

Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke (2004): I love a great big slow old-fashioned book where I occasionally find myself pausing just to admire how fantastic some of the individual sentences are. My hardback of this is almost 800 pages and I've read it I think four times.

Babuji · Answer

Jeffrey Eugenides: I enjoyed getting lost in this book when it came out.

Kate Vee · Answer

Lonesome Dove: You can miss all the meetings when you’re riding with Gus and Call. Beautiful prose, epic story. I alternate between being deeply engaged and then daydreaming of my imaginary life as a cowboygirl.

Mary · Answer

Crocodile on the Sandbank (Elizabeth Peters): This is book 1 in a 20 book series that follows Amelia Peabody and her family as they work as archaeologists in Egypt in the late 1800s/early 1900s. Each book has a mystery! The series is so fun with great characters. I appreciate that all of the details about Ancient Egypt are accurate because the author had a PhD in Egyptology. The audiobooks are available on Hoopla, and it’s easy to find paperback copies secondhand since the series is older.

Gabriela Riccardi · Answer

The Neopolitan Novels: I imagine most novel-lovers have probably already taken a crack at Ferrante. But it's always a good time to spend 3 months reading (or rereading) the epic of Lila and Lenu.