What To Read

This year has been declared by Esquire as “The Year of the Slim Volume.” Between the critical successes of books like Claire Keegan’s Booker Prize nominated Small Things Like These and the celebration of Annie Ernaux’s slim memoirs following her Nobel Prize, there has been renewed interest in books you can read in a day, or maybe a weekend. 

Short works can be beneficial as bookish palette cleansers and are often a masterclass in getting the absolute most potency out of every single word. For me, though, books under 250 pages tend to lack the immersiveness that allows me to lose myself in a story — which also tends to make the books less memorable.

For the most immersive reading experience of all, let yourself get lost in a book that cracks a four-digit page count. Allow me to challenge you to make your next book a doorstopper.    

In our culture of the shrunken attention span, few activities offer better resistance to Big Tech than sitting on a couch with a long book for multiple hours while your phone sits abandoned across the room. Not every long book will captivate you, but those that do are extra special. The five unforgettable books below all run over 1,000 pages and will long live in your reading memory. Plus, read on for a few of Tertulia's staff picks for extra-long reads.

1. The Power Broker by Robert Caro

Though we’re approaching The Power Broker’s 50th birthday in 2024, its deep dive into the machinations of civic power — and its very real impact on local communities — is as relevant today as ever before. 

Many people are aware of this biography of longtime New York City Parks Commissioner Robert Moses, but very few have actually read it. The New York Times even ran a fun article about how often The Power Broker is used as the must-have prop on Zoom backgrounds. It can’t be denied that there’s some sheer endurance needed to get through its 1,100 pages (or 66 hours on audio!). My advice: just start. Once you get through the 25-page introduction, I can almost guarantee you’ll want to keep going.

There’s not a writer out there who has combined incredible prose and narrative storytelling with deep journalistic reporting the way that Robert Caro has. He’s truly inimitable.

2. The Stand by Stephen King

Stephen King’s 1978 post-apocalyptic story of good versus evil is the easiest 1,200 pages you’ll ever read. It starts as a pandemic novel (which was eerily on point when I read it), moves into multiple individual tales of survival, and finishes as a powerful epic about a community coming together to take on the world’s darkest forces. 

If you’re a fan of King’s work, it’s easy to see why The Stand, well, stands alone as the pinnacle of his trademark style and storytelling.

If you’re unfamiliar with King and unsure about the horror genre he’s most famous for, rest assured that while this story does include some classic horror, it’s more of a character-driven thriller with a few supernatural elements thrown in.

3. War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy

I first read Tolstoy’s masterpiece in May 2020, along with many other folks under stay-at-home orders during COVID’s early days. The story and relatable themes were so powerful that I knew I wanted to read it again as soon as I turned the final page. That second reading was even more impactful, which is quite something for a 1,200-page, 150-year-old Russian novel. 

Following a few noble families in Russia as Napoleon’s army invades, Tolstoy finds a way to ask life’s biggest questions about love and meaning while also zooming in to provide the most vivid and enduring social scenes in the history of literature. Among the classic Napoleonic historical novels — Les Miserables, The Count of Monte Cristo, Patrick O’Brian’s Aubrey-Maturin series — War and Peace is the most readable and re-readable.

4. Ducks, Newburyport by Lucy Ellman

According to Strunk and White’s classic The Elements of Style, “The fact that is an especially debilitating expression. It should be revised out of every sentence in which it occurs.”

The fact that Lucy Ellman uses the phrase ad nauseam in her absurdist, award-winning 2019 novel is no reason to stay away. Rather, the opposite is true. In the mold of what David Foster Wallace did with Infinite Jest — both thematically and linguistically — Ellman plumbs the depths of what can be achieved with language when the rules of grammar and even readability are thrown out the window.  Skewering the frenetic pace and unending anxiety of American life, Ellman constructed a 1,000-page book as an unending stream-of-consciousness sentence that takes place in the head of an Ohioan housewife as she lattices cherry pies. Ducks, Newburyport is a remarkable and utterly unique achievement that’s worth immersing yourself in.

5. The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett

Ken Follett, then known for his fast-paced thrillers, took quite a risk when he published The Pillars of the Earth in 1989. Set in 12th-century England, this story is ostensibly about church architecture. 

As with any great book, though, it dives well beneath the surface and richly explores the people of the community through this great structure. Follett makes it easy to see how a decades-long project to design and build a cathedral can function as a symbol for an entire town’s striving towards greater things, with all its attendant hope and hardship along the way. It’s with good reason that The Pillars of the Earth quickly became one of the most beloved (and bestselling) historical novels of all time. In fact, the entire Kingsbridge series is fantastic; be sure to grab the fifth and final book, Armor of Light, which publishes on September 26.

You know that rush and sense of satisfaction you get every time you finish a book? That feeling is increased tenfold when you’ve turned the final page of a book that could literally be used as a doorstopper. You’ll also then have the confidence to tackle any of the intimidating books that have long been on your TBR.   

Here's a few additional Tertulia staff favorites for extra-long books to tackle in the cozy fall and winter reading months ahead!

1. IQ84 by Haruki Murakami

Of all the surreal books by the wildly popular Japanese novelist, this one may have the biggest cult following among true Murakami fanatics. As the two main characters, Aomame and Tengo navigate an alternate reality of Tokyo in 1984, strange occurrences and connections unfold, blurring the lines between reality and fiction.

2. 2666 by Roberto Bolaño

The great Chilean writer's last work is an epic of torrential violence and mystery set in the fictional city of Santa Teresa, which is based on the real-life city of Juarez, Mexico. The book's labyrinthine structure takes some commitment, but draws in readers with a most mesmerizing experience unlike any other book.

3. The Man Without Qualities by Robert Musil

This Austrian modernist epic, which has been compared to Remembrance of Things Past and Ulysses, was never actually finished by Musil, which makes one wonder how much longer the completed work could possibly have been. At its surface a chronicle of the last days of the Austro-Hungarian empire, this novel is ultimately a sweeping indictment of a doomed society descending into fascism.

4. Middlemarch by George Eliot

Published in 1871, this sprawling story of British provincial life is often ranked as the greatest British novel. This beloved book continues to resonate with modern readers for its multi-faceted characters' aspirations and search for meaning. Reading Middlemarch is as close as you can come to watching everyday life gradually unfold before you like a vintage time-lapse Victorian photo.

5. Underworld by Don DeLillo

This finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award hooks readers with its opening scene of the legendary baseball game between the Brooklyn Dodgers and New York Giants, which took place the same day that Russia tested its hydrogen bomb. Few fiction books more beautifully illustrate the imprint of the Cold War on American life.

Jeremy Anderberg writes about all things books — including reviews, lists, interviews, and essays — at readmorebooks.co. He lives in the Denver area with his wife and three kids.