Help me decide on a book to take on holiday next week

[RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie]

A real, live book - not Kindle. Has to be one I've not read before and has to be big. Ideally it will - be well written without being literary, have either a who-dunnit or historical or dystopian or apocalyptic element to it, or indeed all of those.

Things that would tick those boxes but that I've already read are:
Anything by Wilkie Collins
The Passage / The Twelve
CJ Sansom's Shardlake books
This Thing of Darkness

Don't fancy sci-fi at the moment and don't want anything in the best seller lists.

Thanks in advance.

Company of Liars by Karen Maitland. Both historical and semi-apocalyptic (based in the plague years) www.amazon.co.uk/Company-Liars-Karen-Maitland/dp/0141031913

a million little pieces James Frey

Most of the books I would have suggested have been mentioned.

However, how about Testament of Youth - very long and mostly, very interesting.

Another book I couldn't put down is Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese. It's about 600 pages iirc.

If you like Collins, what about some Edgar Allan Poe stories? Or if you like anything Victorian and huge, any Dickens. Or Trollope.

For historical novels, Margaret George's Tudor novels are huge but fairly easy going.

Read most of these. Hate Dickens. Trollope is a possibility, as I'm yet to read any of his.

Ursula le Guin doesn't do it for me - too female. I want manly!

Liked, 'Memoirs of a Geisha' a lot.
Read most of John Irving's but don't like him much and, 'Owen Meaney' really, really annoyed me. Hate all the sex stuff in it and it was far too long and repetitive - it would have made a good novella. Also saw the end coming for ages. I did like the car bit!

Read the Maitland, but found her writing a bit clunky. Read Poe.

Pat Barker - quite liked the 1st in the Regeneration series and hated everything else. 'Toby's Room' was one of the most ridiculous things I've ever read, as was, 'The Eye in the Door.' I found them screamingly, embarrassingly stupid.

The Three Musketeers is an inspired suggestion! Am deffo going to read that. :)

Remus - This might be a good moment for you to try Anathem by Neal Stephenson.

It's now got to be either something from the charity shop up the road, or from the airport tomorrow. I have failed. I do have a non-fiction one, but it won't even last out the plane journey, I don't think.

Airport lit?! Oh no, stay away from Jumpa Lahiri!
Praying for decent charity shop..

Have a good trip anyway!

Charity shop trip resulted in this but tis v short.

Oh I was coming back to suggest either The Siege of Krishnapur (manly, historical but not that long) or The Tale of Murasaki (not manly at all but thought you might like it if you liked Memoirs of a Geisha).

But I see I'm too late! Have a great trip, hope you're not reduced to reading the in-flight magazine.

Have you read The Goldfinch? They will have that in the airport, it is long but very good, epic (as dd11woyld say!).
Did you say if you had read any ken Follett? I bought my first book by him from our actual holiday island, Kefalonia for about 50p 11 years ago, Pillars of the Earth, again, an epic book but fairly manly and will keep you hooked!

Either way have a great holiday!