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Original poster

Can somebody recommend me an epic?

170 replies

WhistlersandJugglers · 15/03/2021 20:42

Hi, I'm in Ireland where the libraries have been closed all year and there is no sign of them opening any time soon. I want to buy a few long books to keep me going. I like family saga type books like Brick Lane, The Poisonwood Bible, Cutting for Stone, A Suitable Boy, Half of a Yellow Sun. If anybody has a suggestion I'd really appreciate it.

OP posts:
Darbishire27 · 17/03/2021 20:33

Another vote for the Cazalets, A Suitable Boy and Wolf Hall
John Galsworthy, The Forsyte Saga
Paul Scott, The Raj Quartet
John Master's Savage series (Savage as a surname not adjective)
Middlemarch
Trollope's Chronicles of Barset and the Palliser series
I would read and reread all of these and be sorry to finish them!

CatNamedEaster · 17/03/2021 20:14

Womanity I think you are right. Just read the details of them all on Amazon and I must have been reading the books at a low point when I needed light relief. I wonder if I'll enjoy them again as muchGrin.

Funkypickle · 17/03/2021 19:37

Another Ken Follett one. The century trilogy. It follows five famillies through the 20th century. From the wars up to the fall of the Berlin Wall. American, Welsh, English, German and Russian families with amazing insight and detail. Very very good read.

womanity · 17/03/2021 19:33

@CatNamedEaster

Womanity YES that was it! I really enjoyed them, I'll see if I can order them from my library. Thank you Wink.

Also just started (about 10 pages in) Sarum by Edward Rutherford. It's set over 100 centuries around Salisbury, from the end of the Ice Age.

If I’m remembering them properly ‘not heavyweight’ is something of an understatement! 😀
CatNamedEaster · 17/03/2021 19:26

Womanity YES that was it! I really enjoyed them, I'll see if I can order them from my library. Thank you Wink.

Also just started (about 10 pages in) Sarum by Edward Rutherford. It's set over 100 centuries around Salisbury, from the end of the Ice Age.

Lobsterquadrille2 · 17/03/2021 19:26

East of Eden - Steinbeck

womanity · 17/03/2021 19:10

@CatNamedEaster

I Know This Much Is True by Wally Lamb. Reread twice. I think I saw an advert for a tv adaptation a while ago but no idea if it's any good.

The Less You Know, The Sounder You Sleep. Incredible account of Russian conjoined twins born into Stalin's regime. So moving and stayed with me for a long time.

Another book that I can't find when searching online: it was a series of 3 or 4 novels set in a publishing family in London, running from maybe late 1800s to 1940's I think. Not heavyweight but I really enjoyed them. Maybe someone else will know what they were.

Were they huge books? It’s ringing a vague 1990s bell here but I couldn’t tell you much more than that.
CatNamedEaster · 17/03/2021 18:42

Ooh I'm just starting to reread Map of Love, so there's another vote for it Smile.

CatNamedEaster · 17/03/2021 18:40

I Know This Much Is True by Wally Lamb. Reread twice. I think I saw an advert for a tv adaptation a while ago but no idea if it's any good.

The Less You Know, The Sounder You Sleep. Incredible account of Russian conjoined twins born into Stalin's regime. So moving and stayed with me for a long time.

Another book that I can't find when searching online: it was a series of 3 or 4 novels set in a publishing family in London, running from maybe late 1800s to 1940's I think. Not heavyweight but I really enjoyed them. Maybe someone else will know what they were.

Llyn · 17/03/2021 18:34

Another vote for Possession and the Children’s Book.

Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry is excellent. I was thinking of the characters long after I’d finished it.

girlofnow · 17/03/2021 18:23

The Far Pavilions

Madmarchlockdown · 17/03/2021 18:21

Pachinko - multi generational Korean family living through the twentieth century in Japan.

SunlessSea · 17/03/2021 18:19

Mumwon, I have lost most of today thanks to your recommendation of Czardos! Thank you! Free on Kindle Unlimited too

womanity · 17/03/2021 17:52

@JaninaDuszejko

The Map of Love by Ahdaf Soueif is sometimes described as Possession in Egypt. It's not quite that, there's a bit less romance (although the historical romance is wonderful) and a bit more politics. But I really enjoyed it last year, it's very evocative of Egypt. And also loved The Children's Book by AS Byatt so definitely recommend that.
I was going to say The Map of Love too but didn’t because I’d already suggested the Cairo Trilogy and it just seemed too Egyptian try-hard!

Loved it, but never got on with Possession.

Started reading the Balkan Trilogy last night on the back of this thread though, so thanks. 😀

JaninaDuszejko · 17/03/2021 16:29

The Map of Love by Ahdaf Soueif is sometimes described as Possession in Egypt. It's not quite that, there's a bit less romance (although the historical romance is wonderful) and a bit more politics. But I really enjoyed it last year, it's very evocative of Egypt. And also loved The Children's Book by AS Byatt so definitely recommend that.

Livingmagicallyagain · 17/03/2021 09:37

The Cole Trilogy. I've only read the first, The Physician, so far. It's excellent.

Rayna37 · 17/03/2021 09:33

American Wife by Curtis Sittenfeld, and I second Life after Life and A God in Ruins by Kate Atkinson

Sooverthemill · 17/03/2021 09:08

@Eekay

When We Were the Mulvaneys by Joyce Carol Oates
My desert island book. There's not a week that I don't think about it
makingitupaswegoon · 17/03/2021 08:41

War and peace

ValerieMorghulis · 16/03/2021 22:51

Shogun
One Hundred Years of Solitude
And yes, the Cazalets!

Neonlightning · 16/03/2021 21:26

This is such a great thread OP!

Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall series is also highly recommended. Historical Elizabethan epic?

Original poster
WhistlersandJugglers · 16/03/2021 20:35

Also I meant to say that I haven't read much historical fiction but the Sarah Donati and Elizabeth Chadwick books look very interesting.

OP posts:
Original poster
WhistlersandJugglers · 16/03/2021 20:22

And how could I forget A Fine Balance? It's an amazing book and I was an emotion wreck after finishing it.

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Original poster
WhistlersandJugglers · 16/03/2021 20:18

Thanks everybody. I put in an order today for The Pillars of the Earth, The Shell Seekers and a Diane Pearson book. I'm very interested in the Shardlake books and the Jean M Auel books so I think they will be my next order.

For anyone else following: Some of my favourite books were recommended here. Gone With the Wind, Possession, Americanah, the Pat Barker Regeneration trilogy, the Jane Smiley trilogy and The Son would be a few that I really loved over the years. I think I might reread Possession this year, I remember being totally enthralled by it.

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