Long haul flight book recommendations

Ken Follett Pillars of the Earth

Ugh, don't waste your time with Richard Osman – bland, third rate stuff. If you want something scary, try M R James. Vastly superior writer in every way. And if you like crime, read Sherlock Holmes. Forget all the films and all the cliches. As with Tolkien, a whole industry has built up around Doyle's Holmes books. If you forget all that and just pick up a collection of the Sherlock Holmes stories (or just read The Hobbit), you realise why they've lasted so long – because they're really, really good. People will still be reading Holmes and M R James when Osman is long forgotten.

The Magpie Murders and related are good.

If you are into older books, (and don't mind a romance set throughout the British Raj) try to find a copy of The Far Pavilions by MM Kaye. It's a long saga that was a monster hit back in the 1980s. I also enjoy her book "Trade Winds" as well as her shorter, light mystery novels.

@AmberBeaker I enjoyed The Luminaries too though it got a little repetitive towards the end. It was a book club choice and I was amazed to learn I was the only one who stuck with it to the end.

Another good NZ set book is The Stranding but definitely not for your flight out OP.

Personally did not finish the Thursday Murder Club.

For a bit of not gruesome crime and I'm having a thing of reading female authors
Horse by Geraldine Brooks
VI Warshawski series
Cormoran Strike series

Lessons in Chemistry is a great read.

The Crazy Rich Asians series is very light and fun.

I also loved Wedding People Kala Good Material and Small Pleasures.
Based on those I also recently liked Consider Yourself Kissed, The Rachel Incident, Blue Sisters, Romantic Comedy. They're all lightish reads. Dolly Aldertons other book Ghosts is also good.

Eleanor Catton has two long books set in NZ -the Luminaries and Birnam Wood - definitely long enough for your flight and not dark subjects but quite dense if that makes sense. I enjoyed both but they're not "easy" reads.

The extent to which you gel with Richard Osman will depend on how happy you are with dialogue-heavy feelgood reads with workmanlike prose and the basic premise of ‘Old people, even if they watch daytime tv and are obsessed with Costa Coffee, are cooler than everyone else.’

If you liked Intermezzo, one of Sally Rooney’s earlier novels?

For happy, engaging, thoughtful novels that are strong on setting and character, Barbara Kingsolver’s The Bean Trees and its sequel Pigs in Heaven, or Prodigal Summer?

Lily King’s Writers and Lovers?