Recommend me an insanely long book

[Queen Michael]

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.

In my mind, a series is something that's clearly intended to be several novels. A good way to tell is if the different parts are complete stories of their own, like A Series of Unfortunate Events for instance.

Concerning Water margin, as I mentioned in the OP I read it already. Luckily I'm Swedish, and we have a great translator here called Göran Malmqvist[footnote]He's also part of the academy that decides who gets the Nobel prize for literature, by the way[/footnote]who's written a fantastic translation of it that I read around the time I was in college.

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.

That's two recommendations of Romance of the Three Kingdoms, but sadly there's no Swedish translation of it, and even though I speak English better than most Swedes, it's not really possible to read a book in a foreign language that you know and get the same impression that you would have if it'd been your native tounge. But I'll give it a shot in English someday anyway, if I can find a translation.

 

[Tanakh]

I love Julio Cortazar's Hodgepodge, re reading it atm. If that doesn't suit you, maybe some Haruki Murakami? Dunno man, with your rules almost every novel in history is fair game. Can you be more specific in what are you looking for?

 

[Albino Boo]

For something of a less literary nature there always the works of James Clavell. They are well written, nicely paced stories, largely based on true events.

For something literary I'd would go with Life and Fate by Vasily Grossman. Its hard going, a good way of describing it is as Dostoyevsky without the jokes. That said, its very moving and gives a real feel of life in mid century Russia. Vasily Grossman, in my view, is the most important of the Soviet dissident writers. He is the Tolstoy of the Soviet era.

 

[Sethzard]

I love The Count of Monte Cristo.
It's a fun tale of adventure and revenge. I think it's aged extremely well.

 

[SonOfVoorhees]

The Descent by Jeff Long http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Descent_%28novel%29

About creatures within the earth and how the world deals with this new world. And on finding the real historical satan. The main story is following a group of people and mercenaries sent into the earth to claim the tunnels etc under the earth in the name of a company. Amazing book, what i wrote here doesnt do it any justice at all. Sorry. But its a thick book.

Flood by Richard Doyle http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flood_%28Doyle_novel%29

What happened if a flood hit London at high tide? Amazing amount of research done that follows the flood from the sea, up through the Thames and into London. Scariest part is its based on reality that this could actually happen for real.

 

[Leadfinger]

How about Moby Dick, 592 pages of nautical awesomeness?
" Call me Ishmael. Some years ago - never mind how long precisely - having little or no money in my purse, and nothing particular to interest me on shore, I thought I would sail about a little and see the watery part of the world. "

 

[Me55enger]

REAMDE - Neal Stephenson.

Longest one I personally can recall that isnt a series of books. Similar in design to a brick.

Not that far through, however, but I had to read Snow Crash for Uni, which was superb.

Remember: Always check for a Dentata.

 

[necromanzer52]

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.

Well that may be, but speaking as someone who's currently a little over half-way through that book, the random tangents that he takes, to talk about the different ways humans act, tend to be more interesting than the actual narrative.

 

[Fijiman]

Have you tried reading the Bible? I here it's really long.

 

[t4nz1t]

Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace.

Two thumbs up for this one.

 

[Bobic]

Well, you read Outlaws of the Marsh and Journey to the west, so you may as well read Romance of the Three Kingdoms and Dream of the Red Chamber to complete the set. I haven't read Dream, but I greatly enjoyed Three Kingdoms, 'twas very good.

Also, seeing as you read The Stand and It, I'm going to assume you like Stephen King and also recommend Under the Dome, another of his pretty snazzy, massive tomes.

 

[Hawkeye21]

"American Gods" by Neil Gaiman. It's like a modern mythos, very entertaining and devilishly long.
Also "Catch 22" by Heller, somebody mentioned it here already, but it bears repeating.

 

[Fijiman]

Have you tried reading the Bible? I here it's really long.

He said no fantasy! xD xD xD

Eh, that's a matter of opinion. Not my opinion, mind you, because I don't really care about whether it's fiction or not.

 

[Amaror]

Does Science fiction count as fantasy? If no then read Metro 2033

 

[Total LOLige]

Insomnia by Stephen King is pretty decent and like 800+ pages I think, not sure if that counts as insanely long.

 

[Halceon]

Gödel, Escher, Bach: An eternal golden braid. It's so non-fantasy that it's non-fiction. Except where it is fiction and metafiction. Don't worry about that, though. It's a very enlightening read about recursion, computation, consciousness, music and art. Also, have a notepad at the ready, at least I know I had the urge to scribble things down while reading.

Once you're done with that , you could look into Dune or Roadside Picnic.

 

[octafish]

Stop fucking about with this little stuff. Remembrance of Things Past AKA In Search of Lost Time. Marcel Proust. Get back to us when you finish that. One Novel. Seven Volumes. You can read the English translation if you like.

 

[Silvianoshei]

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.

I just finished reading this, it's hilarious but very eccentric. If you want something older, try The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky. His Crime and Punishment is also excellent.