Doorstop recommendation

[issybird]

I'm thinking about my 2025 reading challenges and I'd like to change things up a little. So for one challenge, I plan to read six doorstops that I haven't read in decades, if ever.

This is what I've got so far:

• Middlemarch
• Moby Dick
• Don Quixote
• Les Misérables
• The Magic Mountain

Here are my requirements: English language, at least 100 years old, an "important" work, long. I'm preemptively nixing the obvious choice which would be a third English-language nationality and meets all my requirements: Ulysses. I've read it and I'm not feeling it for this challenge. Also, no Dickens or Trollope. I've been immersing myself in Trollope for several years now and I've already picked a Dickens as my fallback sixth choice: Our Mutual Friend. Oh, and not Villette which I loved but am not ready to reread. I am also open to non-Western works, just nothing too ancient. A novel, not runes.

None of this is set in stone, so an appealing recommendation could lead me to jettison another choice. I'm also flexible, within reason. Not English, not quite hitting the century mark, longish instead of long. You get the idea.

So what have you got? What weighty tomes am I not considering?

[astrangerhere]

Originally Posted by issybird

I'm thinking about my 2025 reading challenges and I'd like to change things up a little. So for one challenge, I plan to read six doorstops that I haven't read in decades, if ever.

This is what I've got so far:

• Middlemarch
• Moby Dick
• Don Quixote
• Les Misérables
• The Magic Mountain

Here are my requirements: English language, at least 100 years old, an "important" work, long. I'm preemptively nixing the obvious choice which would be a third English-language nationality and meets all my requirements: Ulysses. I've read it and I'm not feeling it for this challenge. Also, no Dickens or Trollope. I've been immersing myself in Trollope for several years now and I've already picked a Dickens as my fallback sixth choice: Our Mutual Friend. Oh, and not Villette which I loved but am not ready to reread. I am also open to non-Western works, just nothing too ancient. A novel, not runes.

None of this is set in stone, so an appealing recommendation could lead me to jettison another choice. I'm also flexible, within reason. Not English, not quite hitting the century mark, longish instead of long. You get the idea.

So what have you got? What weighty tomes am I not considering?

Vanity Fair and Look Homeward Angel come to mind for me.

As an aside, I read The Magic Mountain a few years ago and found it quite entertaining.

[issybird]

Originally Posted by astrangerhere

Vanity Fair and Look Homeward Angel come to mind for me.

As an aside, I read The Magic Mountain a few years ago and found it quite entertaining.

Thanks! I last read Vanity Fair eight years ago, so it hasn’t quite escaped to the furthest reaches of my memory. Look Homeward Angel, however, we’re talking adolescence since I cracked that so it has distinct possibilities.

I remember greatly enjoying TMM but I can only remember the dimmest outlines of the plot now. That’s essentially what I’m aiming for, as with LHA. And now you’ve got me thinking about Americans I hadn’t considered. Not Dreiser, I think; other than Sister Carrie they’re overall pretty turgid, at least in my memory of them.

[rkomar]

How about The Brothers Karamazov?

[Fbone]

Angle of Repose by Wallace Stegner

Black Lamb and Grey Falcon by Rebecca West

Centennial by James A. Michener

Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln by Doris Kearns Goodwin

Wives and Daughters by Elizabeth Gaskell

Yes yes, I know none of these hit your requirements, but my mother always said I don't listen. However, they do tell of events of 100 years ago.

[pdurrant]

Edward Gibbon's The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire?

The unabridged version comes in at around 2,500 pages.

Or were you looking only for fiction?

[issybird]

Originally Posted by rkomar

How about The Brothers Karamazov?

Nice. Thanks. A definite possibility.

Originally Posted by Fbone

but my mother always said I don't listen. However, they do tell of events of 100 years ago.

Heh. I have my own issues, see below.

Originally Posted by pdurrant

Edward Gibbon's The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire?

The unabridged version comes in at around 2,500 pages.

Or were you looking only for fiction?

Yep. Oops. My intentions were so clear in my own mind that I neglected to state that I am looking for novels.

I'll add that both the Rebecca West and the Gibbons go beyond mere doorstops! Right up there with Pepys' diaries. Each a project for a year-long read. Perhaps sometime, but not next year.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by issybird

I'm thinking about my 2025 reading challenges and I'd like to change things up a little. So for one challenge, I plan to read six doorstops that I haven't read in decades, if ever.

This is what I've got so far:

• Middlemarch
• Moby Dick
• Don Quixote
• Les Misérables
• The Magic Mountain

Here are my requirements: English language, at least 100 years old, an "important" work, long. I'm preemptively nixing the obvious choice which would be a third English-language nationality and meets all my requirements: Ulysses. I've read it and I'm not feeling it for this challenge. Also, no Dickens or Trollope. I've been immersing myself in Trollope for several years now and I've already picked a Dickens as my fallback sixth choice: Our Mutual Friend. Oh, and not Villette which I loved but am not ready to reread. I am also open to non-Western works, just nothing too ancient. A novel, not runes.

None of this is set in stone, so an appealing recommendation could lead me to jettison another choice. I'm also flexible, within reason. Not English, not quite hitting the century mark, longish instead of long. You get the idea.

So what have you got? What weighty tomes am I not considering?

The Complete & Uncut version of The Stand by Stephen King
Sarum by Edward Rutherfurd
Shōgun by James Clavell
Pandora's Star by Peter F. Hamilton
London by Edward Rutherfurd
The Complete version of The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien
The Way of the Kings by Brandon Sanderson
Dhalgren by Samuel R. Delany
Under the Dome by Stephen King
Great North Road by Peter F,. Hamilton
The Outlander Series by Diana Gabaldon (all the books are tombs)
Alaska by James A. Michener
The Century Series by Ken Follett (all the books are tombs)
Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry

[issybird]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

The Complete & Uncut version of The Stand by Stephen King
Sarum by Edward Rutherfurd
Shōgun by James Clavell
Pandora's Star by Peter F. Hamilton
London by Edward Rutherfurd
The Complete version of The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien
The Way of the Kings by Brandon Sanderson
Dhalgren by Samuel R. Delany
Under the Dome by Stephen King
Great North Road by Peter F,. Hamilton
The Outlander Series by Diana Gabaldon (all the books are tombs)
Alaska by James A. Michener
The Century Series by Ken Follett (all the books are tombs)
Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry

I'm somewhat flexible, but only somewhat. Look Homeward, Angel, for example, suggested above, was published in 1929, close enough to my century restriction. I'm not looking for modern, popular fiction, but classics.

FWIW, if anyone cares, my thought process was triggered by all those lists you see that ask "how many of these classics have you read?" If they're really what are considered classics I've generally read many of them, but can I remember anything about them? In many cases, especially if it was one and done decades ago, not really. So do they count? This challenge is not exactly a remedy because I will never reread everything (and some of course I've never read), but it confronts the issue. Or at least that's my intent. I could fail spectacularly.

Thanks for the effort you put into your list.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by issybird

I'm somewhat flexible, but only somewhat. Look Homeward, Angel, for example, suggested above, was published in 1929, close enough to my century restriction. I'm not looking for modern, popular fiction, but classics.

FWIW, if anyone cares, my thought process was triggered by all those lists you see that ask "how many of these classics have you read?" If they're really what are considered classics I've generally read many of them, but can I remember anything about them? In many cases, especially if it was one and done decades ago, not really. So do they count? This challenge is not exactly a remedy because I will never reread everything (and some of course I've never read), but it confronts the issue. Or at least that's my intent. I could fail spectacularly.

Thanks for the effort you put into your list.

Some of the books I've listed are classics. They don't have to be that old to be a classic.

The Complete & Uncut version of The Stand by Stephen King
Sarum by Edward Rutherfurd
Shōgun by James Clavell
The Complete version of The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien

Those are the books from my list that I would say are classics.

[JSWolf]

Here are some that fit the old classic.

War & Peace by Leo Tolstoy
The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas
The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling by Henry Fielding
The Forsyte Saga by John Galsworthy
Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë
North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell

[issybird]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Some of the books I've listed are classics. They don't have to be that old to be a classic.

The Complete & Uncut version of The Stand by Stephen King
Sarum by Edward Rutherfurd
Shōgun by James Clavell
The Complete version of The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien

Those are the books from my list that I would say are classics.

LOL! But I want them that old!

I'd also have to disagree with you about the classic status of the above. I'm looking for a "great books of the western (or any other) canon" vibe. Here's a quick and dirty test: Could the author have been a serious contender for the Nobel prize (if it had existed)? Thomas Mann from my original list did win the Nobel. Tolkien, the closest to classic status IMO from the above was nominated in 1961, but his work was dismissed as second-rate. And there's nothing wrong (much good in fact) with that.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by issybird

LOL! But I want them that old!

I'd also have to disagree with you about the classic status of the above. I'm looking for a "great books of the western (or any other) canon" vibe. Here's a quick and dirty test: Could the author have been a serious contender for the Nobel prize (if it had existed)? Thomas Mann from my original list did win the Nobel. Tolkien, the closest to classic status IMO from the above was nominated in 1961, but his work was dismissed as second-rate. And there's nothing wrong (much good in fact) with that.

Being nominated for a Nobel Prize does not make a book a classic or not. The Nobel Prize has nothing to do with it.

[issybird]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Here are some that fit the old classic.

War & Peace by Leo Tolstoy
The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas
The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling by Henry Fielding
The Forsyte Saga by John Galsworthy
Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë
North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell

Some of these I've read too recently or they're not long enough. And ironically, Galsworthy did win the Nobel, but The Forsyte Saga is really just light fiction IMO, one of those "sweeping family sagas" that I don't care for, although I liked it when I read it back in the day. That said, thank you for recalling Tom Jones to me, which is a perfect fit. Long, important, I haven't read it since college and I like that it's earlier than the 19th century. And funny! A very serious contender.

Much as I'm being tempted by a few suggestions, I think I need to limit this challenge to six novels or risk being overwhelmed. At first I thought I'd have a set list, but now I'm thinking maybe a list of eight or nine of the top contenders, so I'd always have a choice as the year wound down.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by issybird

Some of these I've read too recently or they're not long enough. And ironically, Galsworthy did win the Nobel, but The Forsyte Saga is really just light fiction IMO, one of those "sweeping family sagas" that I don't care for, although I liked it when I read it back in the day. That said, thank you for recalling Tom Jones to me, which is a perfect fit. Long, important, I haven't read it since college and I like that it's earlier than the 19th century. And funny! A very serious contender.

Much as I'm being tempted by a few suggestions, I think I need to limit this challenge to six novels or risk being overwhelmed. At first I thought I'd have a set list, but now I'm thinking maybe a list of eight or nine of the top contenders, so I'd always have a choice as the year wound down.

Happy to help. Here is the longest book according the the Guinness Book of World Records.
In Search of Lost Time by Marcel Proust

And one final suggestion...
The Hunchback of Notre Dame by Victor Hugo